The 2006 FIFA World Cup (officially titled 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, sometimes referred to as the Football World Cup) finals are scheduled to take place in Germany between 9 June and 9 July 2006. Qualification for the tournament is now complete, with all 32 competing teams confirmed. The 2006 finals are the 18th to be contested.

Teams 197
(final tournament: 32)
Host Germany
Champions - (- title)
Matches played 64
Goals scored -
(- per match)
Attendance -
(- per match)
Top scorer(s)

WORLD CUP 2006: Online ticket shop opens

/noticias.info/ The Organising Committee for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany� has opened an online ticket service allowing fans to return match tickets or to transfer them to other fans.

The ticket portal - or 'ticket shop' - opened to business on FIFAworldcup.com on Monday and will close on 9 April before reopening on 1 May and providing a service until two days before each individual game.

Members of the public wishing to either return or transfer their tickets must fill in an online form in the 'Customer Self Service' section. Those wishing to return tickets do not need to state a reason and those tickets will then be offered under 'Resale' at the ticket shop provided the original allocation for that fixture is already sold out.

When a ticket is successfully resold, the seller will receive the full amount they paid for it initially. Tickets going back on sale in the 'Resale' section will be sold at a price 15 per cent above the original face value of the ticket, up to a maximum of 15 euros.

Those wishing to transfer tickets, meanwhile, must provide a reasonable explanation to the OC in addition to paying a fee of ten euros.

WORLD CUP 2006: How to shoot your way into history

/noticias.info/ Every aspiring footballer grows up with dreams of scoring in a FIFA World Cup� and for most, including some of the game's all-time greats, their dreams are destined to remain unfulfilled.

However, among the fortunate few who have experienced that feeling of euphoria on the world's greatest football stage, there is an elite band of players who have achieved something remarkable by netting not once, not twice, but three, four and even five times in a single match. Here, we look back on some on the most memorable scoring feats.

Record breaker

Grainy black and white images of matches from days gone by evoke wistful reminiscences of past eras when the emphasis was more on attack than defence, with scorelines to match. It may come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that the record number of goals scored by one player in an individual game at the FIFA World Cup was set just 12 years ago at USA 1994.

The third round of matches in Group 2 pitted Russia against Cameroon in San Francisco and, though already eliminated from the tournament, the Russians and their striker Oleg Salenko, in particular, would end the match with a place in the record books. The Indomitable Lions certainly failed spectacularly to live up to their name, capitulating in a 6-1 thrashing which saw Salenko find the net five times in the space of an hour between the 16th and 75th minute.

Marksmen to the four

The sight of a player scoring four goals in a single game was not considered such a rarity during the early days of the FIFA World Cup, when teams still competed for the Jules Rimet Trophy. For example, at the 1938 finals in France, the Pole Ernest Willimowski struck four times against Brazil but still came out on the losing side in an incredible 6-5 defeat after extra time.

The FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 1950, perhaps best remembered for the outpouring of national grief that followed the hosts' defeat in the Final, was also the setting for the four goals scored by the Brazilian Ademir in a 7-1 rout of Sweden in the final group stage. There was a similar story four years later in Switzerland, where another team recorded a high-scoring victory in the group phase before eventually succumbing in the Final. Sandor Kocsis, the jewel in the crown of a free-flowing Hungary side, hit four in a crushing 8-3 victory over West Germany, but it was the Germans who enjoyed the last laugh by beating the Magyars in the Final in Berne.

When Sweden hosted the finals in 1958, Just Fontaine put four past the hapless German goalkeeper Heini Kwiatkowski in a 6-3 win that decided the match for third place and took the Frenchman's tally for the tournament to 13, earning him the mantle of all-time top scorer in a FIFA World Cup finals.

The legend of the 'Black Pearl' The real star of the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England was Portugal's Eusebio, who carried his team to third place in the competition and delivered, in the process, a masterclass in the art of striking.

Portugal beat Brazil in the group stage and then faced Italy�s conquerors, the unfancied Korea DPR, in the quarter-final. As the first half unfolded it seemed like those who had written off the Asian team would be forced to eat their words once again, with Portugal getting off to a disastrous start by conceding three goals without reply in the opening 25 minutes. That, however, merely proved the cue for the 'Black Pearl' to restore order, which he swiftly did by netting four times, twice from the penalty spot, in a remarkable 5-3 win.

'The Vulture' swoops

At the 1986 FIFA World Cup, an entertaining Denmark team took on Spain in the second round on an unforgettable afternoon for Emilio Butragueno. The dynamic Danes had, until that point in the tournament, swept all before them and even found themselves tipped as potential winners. However, Real Madrid striker Butragueno had other ideas and, despite going behind to an early Jesper Olsen goal, stormed back to win 5-1 with four goals from El Buitre (The Vulture).

Hat-tricks galore

The FIFA World Cup has seen many instances of players scoring three goals in a match and looking at some of the more significant hat-tricks scored over the last few decades, there is only one place to start...

The first of these came in 1966 when England's Geoff Hurst became a national hero thanks to the three goals he scored to carry the hosts to a dramatic Final victory over West Germany. Two of Hurst's three goals came in extra time and the end result at an emotionally charged Wembley Stadium was that England lifted the FIFA World Cup for the first and only time in their history.

West Germany's Gerd Muller, who struck fear into opposition defences like few players before or since, holds the record for the overall number of goals scored during the FIFA World Cup finals. His total of 14 goals includes two hat-tricks from Mexico 1970 � one in a 5-2 win over Bulgaria and another in a 3-1 defeat of Peru � and Der Bomber's feats earned him his rightful place alongside the game's all-time great marksmen.

In 1982 Italy's Paolo Rossi achieved something that even professional footballers can only dream about: he scored three goals against Brazil and, in doing so, eliminated the South Americans from the competition and set his country on the way to their third world title. At the same tournament, Hungary's Laszlo Kiss started on the substitutes' bench only to come on and score a hat-trick in just seven minutes as El Salvador crumbled to a 10-1 defeat.

Argentine legend Gabriel Batistuta, meanwhile, hit a hat-trick at both USA 1994 and France 98. His treble in the United States came in a 4-0 triumph over Greece while, in France, all three came in the last 20 minutes of his side's 5-0 defeat of Jamaica.

This list of FIFA World Cup hat-trick scorers is far from comprehensive, however, and other illustrious names who must be mentioned are Rob Rensenbrink, Zbigniew Boniek, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Igor Belanov, Preben Elkijaer, Tomas Skuhravy, Michel and, most recently, Miroslav Klose for Germany against Saudi Arabia at Korea/Japan 2002.

Although football has changed radically since the first FIFA World Cup, the glorious unpredictability of the sport ensures that the beautiful game continues to fascinate more people than ever. The plethora of top strikers on show in Germany will once again guarantee the watching millions an abundance of goalmouth action, with the likes of Adriano, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and Hernan Crespo just a few of those who will arrive with hopes of a FIFA World Cup hat-trick. Can anyone, however, realistically dream of emulating the five-goal feat of Salenko? In this tournament, you just never know.