On 6th of July, 2000, FIFA decided that Germany should be the country to host the 2006 edition of World Cup. This decision was made in a hard political context. It was called the biggest sportive - diplomatic decision of the year. At the start line, 5 countries had the desire to be selected: Brazil, Marocco, England, Germany and South Africa. But, surprise: Brazil gave its support to South Africa. Only four countries remained in competition. England lost any chance at Euro 2000, when the fans destroyed all the chances for the qualification. Marocco is too little in order to be in a serious competition with South Africa and Germany. In the final stage of voting, only two countries remained: South Africa and Germany. Even the Romanian BBC news radio specified that the winner must be South Africa, because: 1) Africa never hosted a World Cup and 2) the boss of FIFA, from Switzerland, needs the support of Africa in order to be revoted president of FIFA. It was a surprise for everybody to see the winner. It's true, the quality of pictures at South_Africa's presentation was very bad, and all the mass media was against this country. It seems that Oceania had the final word in this matter. There were 12 votes for Germany, and 11 for South Africa.

Germany:

Group Phase

Knock-out Round:

Date	Team 1	Team 2	Results
2006-06-24	Germany	Sweden	2-0
2006-06-24	Argentina	Mexico	2-1
2006-06-25	England	Ecuador	1-0
2006-06-25	Portugal	Netherlands	1-0
2006-06-26	Italy	Australia	1-0
2006-06-26	Switzerland	Ukraine	0-3
2006-06-27	Brazil	Ghana	3-0
2006-06-27	Spain	France	1-3

Quarter-finals:

Date	Team 1	Team 2	Results
2006-06-30	Germany	Argentina	4-2
2006-06-30	Italy	Ukraine	3-0
2006-07-01	England	Portugal	1-3
2006-07-01	Brazil	France	0-1

Semi-finals:

Date	Team 1	Team 2	Results
2006-07-04	Germany	Italy	0-2
2006-07-05	Portugal	France	0-1

Final:

Date	Team 1	Team 2	Results
2006-07-09	Italy	France	5-3