From 9 June - 9 July 2006, the 18th FIFA World Cup™ was held in Germany.
The 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ marked a return to Europe before the FIFA World Cups™ start to move from continent to continent on a regular basis: 2010 is already scheduled to be held in Africa and 2014 in South America.

Preliminary Draw In Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main hosted the Preliminary Draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ Germany on 5 December 2003. (For more information about the Preliminary Draw, click here).

Final Draw In Leipzig

The draw for the finals took place on 9 December 2005 in Leipzig, Germany. The names of the 32 qualified nations were drawn out of four hats (plus a special one-group hat) to determine the first-round match-ups at the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ in Germany.

The match schedule:

The 12 cities selected to host the matches were: Berlin, Cologne, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Hanover, Kaiserslautern, Leipzig, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart.

The date for the opening game was 9 June 2006 at the new Stadion München. Each team played three matches in the group phase, with the best sixteen progressing to the second round. Berlin's Olympiastadion will host the Final on 9 July 2006.

Following the Final Draw on 9 December 2005 a finalized match schedule was released.

The format of the competition was similar to France 98 and Korea & Japan 2002: 64 matches were played in 31 days (33 days for France 98).

First round:

Second phase: