2002 World Cup Korea/Japan

The 2002 World Cup made history as the first World Cup that was jointly hosted by two countries -South Korea and Japan - who both automatically qualified, making it the first time three teams had received automatically qualified (the other was holders France).  The format of the competition remained unchanged with initially eight groups of four matches.

The tournament started with a shock defeat for defending champions France to Senegal in their first finals tournament.  The French team never recovered from this loss and ended bottom of their group and knocked out in the first round.  Another fancied team knocked out in the first round was Argentina from what was dubbed the 'Group of Death'.

In the second round co-hosts Japan were knocked out.  The other hosts, South Korea, knocked out established European powers Italy and then in the next round Spain before losing out to German in the semi-finals, although Michael Ballack who scored the Germans winning goal was booked and missed the final.

The final was held in the International Stadium Yokohama front of a crowd of over 94,000 and was contested by four time winners Brazil and three time winners Germany.  The match was decided by Brazilian striker Ronaldo who scored both goals - making up for his dismal performance in the previous World Cup final.  He also ended the tournament with eight goals, the highest number for a player since 1970.  the first goal was partly owing to a mistake by German goalkeeper Oliver Khan who had had an excellent tournament up until that point but the second goal was typical Brazilian flair.  This was Brazils fifth tournament win.

Top Scorers

8 Goals -  Ronaldo (Brazil)

5 Goals - Miroslav Klose (Germany)
             - Rivaldo (Brazil)

 

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