FIFA World Cup qualification

The FIFA World Cup qualification is the process that a national association football team goes through to qualify for the FIFA World Cup finals. The FIFA World Cup is the largest international team sport competition in the world with a qualification process required to reduce the large field of countries from 52 to just 16 for the World Cup finals until the 1982 edition.

First appearance in qualification by team
Note: Only teams that played at least one match are considered for the purposes of first appearance. Teams that withdrew prior to the qualification, or that qualified to the World Cup by walkover due to other teams' withdrawals, are not considered. Teams that succeeded in their first qualification are in bold.