Listed below are the dates and results for the2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds forUEFA teams. A total of 51 teams took part, divided in 8 groups – five groups of six teams each and three groups of seven teams each – competing for 13 places in the World Cup.Germany, the hosts, were already qualified, for a total of 14 European places in the tournament. The qualifying process started on 18 August 2004, over a month after the end ofUEFA Euro 2004, and ended on 16 November 2005.Kazakhstan, which transitioned from theAsian Football Confederation to UEFA after the end of the2002 FIFA World Cup, debuted in the European qualifiers.
The teams in each group played against each other in a home and away basis. The team with the most points in each group qualified to the World Cup. The runners up were ranked against each other. For fairness rules, results against the seventh placed team were ignored, in groups of seven teams. The two best ranked runners-up also qualified to the World Cup. The other six runners-up were drawn into threetwo-legged knock out matches, the playoff winners also qualifying.
The race to join hosts Germany at the 2006 FIFA World Cup featured an unlikely winner in Europe, where Ukraine became the first team to qualify, having finished above Turkey, Denmark and Greece in arguably the continent's toughest qualifying group.
France had its first successful World Cup qualifying campaign in twenty years as they had missed the 1990 and 1994 tournaments, then qualified automatically as hosts in 1998 and as defending champions in 2002.
Serbia and Montenegro and Croatia also advanced to Germany at the head of their sections, the former forcing Spain into the playoffs in the process. Besides the eight group winners, two teams progressed automatically as best runners up, namely Poland and Sweden while the playoffs offered a second chance to six others.
The draw was made on 5 December 2003 inFrankfurt, Germany. Germany qualified automatically as hosts. The other seedings were determined by points per game in the qualifiers for2002 FIFA World Cup qualification andUEFA Euro 2004 qualifying.[1] France qualified automatically for the2002 FIFA World Cup as title holders, so only their record in UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying was used. Portugal qualified automatically forUEFA Euro 2004 as hosts, so only their record in World Cup 2002 was used. Kazakhstan were not ranked by this system as they did not participate in either competition.[citation needed]
For domestic clubs involved in international club competitions reasons, England, France, Italy and Spain were drawn into groups of 6 teams.
Because three groups each had seven teams and the others each had six, matches against the 7th placed team were discarded for the purposes of the ranking
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