Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup

2006 FIFA World Cup

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...

 qualification rounds for UEFA

UEFA

The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....

teams. A total of 51 teams took part, divided in 8 Groups - five groups of 6 teams each and three groups of 7 teams each - competing for 13 places in the World Cup. Germany

Germany national football team

The Germany national football team is the football team that has represented Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association , which was founded in 1900....

, the hosts, were already qualified, for a total of 14 European places in the tournament.

The teams in each group would play against each other in a home-and-away basis. The team with most points in each group would qualify to the World Cup. The runners-up would be ranked. For the sake of fairness, in groups with 7 teams, results against the 7th placed team were ignored. The two best ranked runners-up would also qualify to the World Cup. The other six runners-up were drawn into three home-and-away knock-out matches, winners of those matches 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.

If first-time finalists Ukraine caused a surprise, elsewhere many of the usual suspects were prominent. The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Italy and England all won their groups, although in the case of the French and English only after a stumble or two along the way.

For this edition, three British teams were drawn in the same group: England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the only one not in the same group being Scotland. This meant that there were to be at least 6 British derbies played. One of those most talked about by the press was the fixture between England and Wales, as it was to be the first (and only) time childhood friends and then teammates Ryan Giggs

Ryan Giggs

Ryan Joseph Giggs OBE is a Welsh professional footballer who plays for Manchester United. Giggs made his first appearance for the club during the 1990–91 season and has been a regular player since the 1991–92 season...

 and Gary Neville

Gary Neville

Gary Alexander Neville is a former English footballer. He is England's most capped right-back and was Manchester United's club captain for five years....

 played against each other in a competitive fixture.

One of the big shocks also included reigning European Champions Greece failing to qualify for the tournament finishing fourth in group 2 featuring Turkey, Denmark, and Ukraine. Another idiosyncrasy

Idiosyncrasy

An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person . The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be .-Etymology:...

 was Israel finishing unbeaten (in a tough group containing France, Switzerland and the Republic of Ireland) yet coming third in the group and failing to even make the play-offs.

Serbia and Montenegro and Croatia also advanced to Germany at the head of their sections, the former forcing Spain into the play-offs in the process. Besides the eight group winners, two teams progressed automatically as best runners-up, namely Poland and Sweden while the play-offs offered a second chance to six others.

Group 1

EWLINE Team 12 10 2 0 27 3 +24 32 12 9 0 3 35 12 +23 27 12 8 1 3 20 10 +10 25 12 5 1 6 21 19 +2 16 12 2 3 7 11 24 −13 9 12 2 1 9 9 25 −16 7 12 1 2 9 4 34 −30 5

EWLINE                 – 0–3 0–4 0–0 1–0 0–3 1–5 2–1 – 0–3 0–2 1–2 0–1 1–1 8–1 4–1 – 4–3 6–1 0–2 1–0 3–0 3–1 0–3 – 5–1 0–4 0–1 0–0 3–0 0–2 0–3 – 2–2 1–2 4–0 2–0 2–0 3–1 0–0 – 2–0 2–0 3–0 2–0 2–1 2–1 0–2 –

Group 2

EWLINE Team 12 7 4 1 18 7 +11 25 12 6 5 1 23 9 +14 23 12 6 4 2 24 12 +12 22 12 6 3 3 15 9 +6 21 12 4 1 7 11 20 −9 13 12 2 4 6 14 25 −11 10 12 0 1 11 6 29 −23 1

EWLINE                 – 0–2 3–2 2–1 2–1 0–1 0–2 3–1 – 6–1 1–0 3–0 1–1 1–1 2–0 2–2 – 1–3 0–0 2–5 1–1 2–0 2–1 1–0 – 3–1 0–0 0–1 0–1 1–2 1–2 1–2 – 0–6 1–2 2–0 2–2 1–1 0–0 4–0 – 0–3 2–2 1–0 2–0 1–1 2–0 0–1 –

Group 3

EWLINE Team 12 9 3 0 35 5 +30 30 12 6 5 1 24 8 +16 23 12 6 5 1 23 12 +11 23 12 5 2 5 16 17 −1 17 12 4 3 5 18 21 −3 15 12 2 2 8 13 23 −10 8 12 0 0 12 5 48 −43 0

EWLINE                 – 2–1 2–0 4–0 0–1 1–1 1–2 2–2 – 1–0 4–0 0–2 1–1 1–1 1–2 1–3 – 3–0 2–2 1–2 0–0 0–2 3–4 0–4 – 0–5 0–4 0–4 4–0 3–0 2–1 6–0 – 7–1 2–0 4–0 2–0 2–0 5–1 0–0 – 1–1 1–0 4–1 7–0 3–1 1–1 0–0 –

Group 4

EWLINE Team 10 5 5 0 14 2 +12 20 10 4 6 0 18 7 +11 18 10 4 6 0 15 10 +5 18 10 4 5 1 12 5 +7 17 10 1 1 8 8 20 −12 4 10 0 1 9 4 27 −23 1

EWLINE               – 2–2 0–2 1–2 0–1 1–3 0–3 – 0–2 0–2 0–2 1–3 4–0 3–0 – 0–0 0–0 0–0 2–1 2–1 1–1 – 1–1 2–2 3–0 2–0 0–1 2–2 – 0–0 1–0 6–0 1–1 1–1 1–1 –

Group 5

EWLINE Team 10 7 2 1 17 8 +9 23 10 5 3 2 12 7 +5 18 10 3 4 3 9 7 +2 13 10 3 3 4 10 13 −3 12 10 2 4 4 12 14 −2 10 10 1 2 7 5 16 −11 5

EWLINE               – 1–4 4–0 0–1 0–0 1–1 4–3 – 2–1 2–1 2–0 1–0 2–0 0–1 – 0–0 1–1 1–2 1–1 0–0 1–0 – 1–2 3–0 0–1 1–1 2–0 0–1 – 0–0 1–1 1–0 3–0 2–3 0–3 –

Group 6

EWLINE Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts 10 8 1 1 17 5 12 25 10 8 0 2 27 9 18 24 10 4 3 3 15 12 3 15 10 2 3 5 10 18 −8 9 10 2 2 6 10 15 −5 8 10 0 3 7 1 21 −20 3

EWLINE               – 2–0 2–2 2–0 1–3 1–0 0–0 – 0–1 0–0 0–3 1–1 1–0 2–0 – 4–0 2–1 2–0 3–3 2–0 1–0 – 0–3 2–3 3–2 8–0 1–2 1–0 – 1–0 0–2 2–0 0–1 2–2 2–3 –

Group 7

EWLINE Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts 10 6 4 0 16 1 15 22 10 5 5 0 19 3 16 20 10 4 4 2 12 9 3 16 10 3 3 4 16 11 5 12 10 2 4 4 8 9 −1 10 10 0 0 10 2 40 −38 0

EWLINE               – 4–1 1–1 8–0 0–2 0–2 1–0 – 1–1 3–0 0–0 1–1 1–1 0–1 – 4–0 0–2 0–0 1–2 1–3 0–1 – 0–3 0–6 0–0 1–0 2–0 5–0 – 0–0 2–0 1–1 1–0 5–0 1–1 –

Group 8

EWLINE Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts 10 7 3 0 21 5 16 24 10 8 0 2 30 4 26 24 10 4 3 3 20 17 0 15 10 4 2 4 13 14 −1 14 10 1 1 8 14 27 −13 4 10 0 3 7 4 29 −25 3

EWLINE               – 1–3 2–0 3–2 4–1 0–3 2–2 – 3–0 4–0 3–0 1–0 1–1 0–0 – 3–2 4–0 0–1 1–3 1–3 2–3 – 4–1 1–4 1–1 1–1 0–2 0–0 – 0–7 3–0 0–1 3–0 3–1 6–0 –

Play-offs

Sweden and Poland qualified directly to the World Cup. The other teams had to play-off.

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
	10	8	0	2	30	4	26	24
	10	8	0	2	27	9	18	24
	10	7	0	3	23	11	12	21
	10	5	5	0	19	3	16	20
	10	4	6	0	18	7	11	18
	10	5	3	2	12	7	5	18
	10	4	5	1	17	7	10	17
	10	4	5	1	13	9	4	17

First leg

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Second leg

Spain won 6–2 on aggregate.
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Switzerland 4–4 Turkey. Switzerland won on away goals.
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Czech Republic won 2–0 on aggregate.
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