Why does the United Kingdom have one team for the Olympics, yet each country qulifies for the World Cup?
371723
Football originated in Britain and the first 'internationals' were between the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. When football became international they carried on that way. Cricket has separate teams too. \n\nIncidentally the UK can't enter a football team for the Olympic Football event as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can't agree on forming a British team and so no team at all is sent for that competition
381495
For a single sports event, no doubt the Fifa World Cup, held every four years, where the continental champions and the best soccer teams of the world (becuase they earned their right to qualify afrer a tedious qualification process) face off to see who is crowned as the best team of the World after that tournament.
1018943
Hey there Scott\nUnlike Africa which is a Continent made up of many countries, the United States is one country made of 50 states, so they have one team participating as all other countries do. However I'm sure that their players come from a wide range of States in their country. I hope that makes things a little easier to understand. Don't worry, not every one knows everything about other countries. Hope you enjoy the World Cup.
485957
Simple there is no UK federation each country has its own leagues
992272
I hope you're not trying to make this into a race issue, because it would be terribly lame.\n\nSoccer has been the most dominant sport amongst European countries for a very long time. By comparison, African countries have been producing World Cup teams only recently. \n\nIf the team is good enough, they will qualify. Take the US, for example, they are supposedly the "leader of the free world", but their team only recently began qualifying for the World Cup (and hasn't as of yet made it very far).
614602
Interestingly enough, they also compete as independant nations in the Commonwealth games, and all other sports. In fact the Olympic team, and the British & Irish Rugby Union team are the only British Sporting teams.\nWell the simple answer is that they wish to represent their own countries (known as the Home nations in UK) normally, but when the first modern Olympic games were held in Athens in 1896, the British Empire was still at it's height, and Union was popular. So the British sent a unified team, and formed the British Olympic Association, which has since always oorganised a British team.
1002013
Because out of those countries England is the only one known to play soccer and to have a passion for it.
389025
You have to qualify.  Many more countries attempt to participate, but are eliminated before the Cup starts.  Only 32 countries can qualify for the Cup proper.\n\nOther countries don't even try, usually because they have little tradition of the sport, have no chance, or have no money to allocate for the expense of a national team.
1091820
It's kinda simple. Europe has alot of countries which gives it a better chance to qualify in the World Cup. And also Europe's countries have very good soccer players. An example is England, England is one of the best soccer teams. England can beat brazil and Argentina and win the World Cup. All because it has good soccer players. So Europe has more countries and good soccer players.
571704
I would think that the team goes and plays the games it was scheduled to play and if they won the World Cup, it probably could create the amazing feat of reuniting the two sides into one country, maybe even go back to the old Yugoslavia days. We are all humans, there are no "country lines" anywhere I looked so we are all in the same team. Hope one day we can leave our pitty differences and join as one race.
1077868
ok it takes a month to finish the world cup. it starts out with 32 teams.  they are all seperated into groups. there are 8 groups. in those groups there are 4 teams. so all those teams play each other and the top two teams go on to the next round. in that round there is only 16 teams. then all those people play each other and if you loose once your out of the tournament. then you go to the next  round. which is only eight teams.  then they play each other. then the top four teams go to the next round and they all play each other. which leads us to the last round where to two best teams play each other. that's how the tournament  works. i hope that wasn't too confusing lol.
329666
No, the United States is ranked fourth in the world and there are 8 groups in the World Cup, yet the USA didn't recieve top seeding in a group.  The way it works, is they pick 8 teams to to be the #1 seed, then the rest of the teams are placed in groups (there isn't a seed given to non #1 seeds).  This is supposed to be done so you don't get a group of four super powers like Germany, Brazil, England, and France.
1035135
the world cup is played by nations and not club teams. that is why you see only national teams int he world cup.\n\nchampionship club teams do not compete in the world cup, they only compete in club side competitions: ie champions league, uefa cup, and different cup in different competitions depending on the league (spanish cup, fa cup, league cup, copa italia)\n\nplayers on club teams will play in the world cup nations, for example, nesta, kaka, cafu, shvencko, gattuso, gerrard, cisse( til he broke his leg), carragher, crouch, kewell, etc. they are given a salary by their club teams, though the national teams often have incentives too.
1085417
World cup- England nth. ireland,scotland and wales each fielded thier own teams in the cup.All were eliminated in the preliminary rounds except england.These countries also field separate teams in,cricket trugby and at commonwealth games.The olympics are held for all of the nations.Neither england, scotland, wales or nth ireland are a nation so they have compete as grt britain.One country.For example before the unification of germany both fielded separate teams in internatonal competions
395827
because only a few countries can keep up themselves to the big games
1026819
there are soccer being contested in the Olympics, currently 16 teams will be played in the Olympics.\n\nqualification will be similar to the World Cup where respective confederations will be allocated their berth, host nation will get the automatic berth.\n\nthe Olympic soccer event is only restricted to under 23-squad but 3 player over 23 can be included in the squad.\n\nARGENTINA won the last summer Olympics soccer final in 2004 beating PARAGUAY in the final. Ironically, this is ARGENTINA's 1st first gold medal & PARAGUAY's first silver medal in the competition.\n\nBRAZIL may have won the World Cup 5 times but they have yet to win the elusive gold medal in Olympics soccer event. they have only won silver medal in 1988 losing to Soviet Union.
337999
There are 32 teams in the World Cup: \n\nAngola, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cote D'Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Iran, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Montenegro, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, United states of America.\n\nEach team can have a maximum of 23 teams. Usually 3 of those go for goalkeepers, and then 20 to divide among defenders, midfielders, and strikers.