Europe leads 10-9 to Latin America

The 19^th edition of the FIFA World Cup witnessed a fantastic conclusion with Spain becoming only the 8^th Nation to win the FIFA World Cup. Though the grand event had its share of controversies ranging from the Jabulani ball to poor referee decisions, the event drew around 500 million viewers on the Final match. Never did so many people in the world simultaneously watch or have done one particular thing at a time.

The World Cup, as it seems to appear, is not just a competition among the countries. It is also a battle between two footballing Continent of Europe and South America to label their supremacy over each other. Though both the continent play football with their own distinctive style, Europeans has the edge when compared statistically. Till date, the European nations have hosted the World Cup 10 times out of its 19 editions while S.America has manage to host just 4 times. The remaining 5 World Cup were hosted thrice by N.America and once each by Asia and Africa.

The hopes of Latin Americans over shooting the Europeans with more trophy wins were dashed when Uruguay loss to the Dutch in the Semi Final. The European Nations now leads 10-9 to the Latin Nations. For Europeans, the Azurris have won it 4 times, the Germans won on 3 occasion out of their record 7 final appearance  while  England, France and this year Champion Spain won 1 time each . As for the Latinos, Brazilians have won a record 5 times out of their 7 final appearances, while Argentina and Uruguay have won twice each. However, it is only the Brazilians who have appeared in all the nineteen edition of the World Cup.

Moreover, Spain became only the second reigning Euro Champions (2008) to have won the World cup after Germany did so in 1972 and 1974. Adding to that, it’s only the third occasion, where the tradition of winning the World Cup alternately by Latin Americans and Europeans has been broken. Spain retained the Cup for Europe after Italy won in 2006. The other two occasion being 1934, 1938 when Italy were the Champions while in 1958, 1962 Brazil won. In this case also the Europeans retained the cup twice while the Latinos retained only once.

The Golden Boot award, awarded to the top scorer of the tournament has seen 16 winners from Europe while Latin America has just managed 8 winners. On two occasions the award has been shared. In 1994 it was shared between Oleg Salenko and Hristo Stoichkov while in 1962 six players shared the Golden Boot award. As for the Golden Ball, since its inception in 1982, both the continent has won it on four occasions each.

Now, with the 20^th Edition to be held in Brazil four years down the line, The Latinos  are gearing up to make the most of their home continent and catch up with the Europeans. While the Europeans would like to leave the Latinos behind to create a hattrick.