Qualification & Venues

Qualification
198 teams attempted to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. Germany, the host nation, was granted automatic qualification, with the remaining 31 finals places divided among the continental confederations. This was the first World Cup for which the title holders were not granted automatic qualification. Thirteen places were contested by UEFA teams (Europe), five by CAF teams (Africa), four by CONMEBOL teams (South America), four by AFC teams (Asia), and three by CONCACAF teams (North and Central America and Caribbean). The remaining two places were decided by playoffs between AFC and CONCACAF and between CONMEBOL and OFC (Oceania).
Eight nations qualified for the finals for the first time: Angola, Côte d'Ivoire, Czech Republic, Ghana, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine and Serbia & Montenegro. Czech Republic and Ukraine were making their first appearance as independent nations, but had previously been represented as part of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union respectively; Serbia & Montenegro had competed as Yugoslavia in 1998, as well as making up part of Yugoslav teams from 1930 to 1990. For the first time since the 1982 World Cup, all six confederations were represented at the finals tournament.

Venues
Germany in 2006 had a plethora of football stadia which satisfied FIFA's minimum capacity of 40,000 for World Cup matches. The still-standing Olympiastadion in Munich (69,250) was not used even though FIFA's regulations allow one city to use two stadia; Düsseldorf's LTU Arena (51,500), Bremen's Weserstadion (43,000) and Mönchengladbach's Borussia-Park (46,249) were also unemployed during the tournament.
Twelve stadia were selected to host the World Cup matches. During the tournament, many of the stadia were known by different names, as FIFA prohibits sponsorship of stadia unless the stadium sponsors were also official FIFA sponsors. For example, the Allianz Arena in Munich was known during the competition as FIFA World Cup Stadium, Munich (or in German: FIFA WM-Stadion München), and even the letters of the company Allianz were removed or covered. These new names are reflected in the table in the brackets. Some of the stadia also had a lower capacity for the World Cup, as FIFA regulations ban standing room; nonetheless, this was accommodated as several stadiums had an UEFA 5-star ranking.