The 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers have just ended on November 20th; national teams like Argentina, United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Japan, and Ivory Coast have secured their place in the 32 possible spots for this international cup.

The World Cup will take place in Brazil this year, giving Brazil an automatic qualification to the competition.

The first teams who qualified, besides Brazil, came from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The AFC is offered four and a half berths to qualify for the World Cup. Japan qualified after winning Group B of the fourth round of AFC qualifications.

The other three teams to qualify from Asia were Australia, Iran, and South Korea. Australia decided to turn to the AFC after having very low competition in the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

Jordan came close by winning the half berth of AFC. Jordan secured a playoff match against Uruguay from the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) who had also won a half berth from South America. This match between South Americans and Asians ended in a 5-0 win for Uruguay. With this win, Uruguay made it to the World Cup.

Netherlands and Italy were the first two countries to qualify from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to the World Cup, each winning their respective groups on September 10.

Countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, England, and Spain also secured World Cup qualification by winning their corresponding groups.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only country to make the World Cup for the first time in their history. Bosnian student Amra Zukanović, said,” I feel so happy and proud that we made it to the World Cup finally. It’s really exciting seeing your country and people so motivated and it was really emotional for a lot of people. We’ve only been an independent country for not even 20 years!”

There were four more places left for European teams however. Portugal and Sweden played, meaning that either Cristiano Ronaldo or Zlatan Ibrahimović would stay out of the World Cup. The Portuguese team beat the Swedish team 4 to 2 on aggregate and secured their spot in the World Cup.

Ukraine and France played too. France beat Ukraine in two very intense games; France ended up winning on aggregate 3 to 2 and is on its way to Brazil.

Greece beat Romania four to two and Croatia beat Iceland 2-0 giving the Greek and Croatian a spot in the World Cup.

Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador were the four teams that qualified directly from CONMEBOL. Well-known player, Lionel Messi, helped his country, Argentina qualify by winning the CONMEBOL Round Robin.

From the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), United States, Costa Rica and Honduras qualified to the World Cup directly by getting the first three places of the Fourth Round of qualification.

Mexico ended up fourth and was forced to play New Zealand in two matches for a World Cup spot. Mexico beat New Zealand by an exaggerated score of nine to three on aggregate. Oribe Peralta scored five of these goals from the Mexican side.

Africa sent five total representatives to the World Cup: Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and Algeria.

Ivory Coast beat Senegal 4-2, Ethiopia lost 1-4 to Nigeria, Cameroon beat Tunisia 4-1, Ghana won 7-3 against Egypt, and Burkino Faso and Algeria tied 3-3 but Algeria passed for having more away goals than Burkina Faso.

Senior Ethiopians Emanuel Golla and Bacha Reagassa before the two matches were pumped up for the game. Golla posted, “We got this” on Twitter hours before the game.

After the two game series, Emanuel and Bacha had frowns on their faces because their country had failed to qualify. All they knew was that Ethiopia tried their best. And of course, blaming the referee for the two losses.

Those are the thirty-two teams that made it to the World Cup; the final group draw will take place on December 6^th, where everyone will know the teams for each group for the World Cup.