World Cup 2002

FIFA World Cup 2002

Japan and South Korea co-hosted the 17th FIFA World Cup in 2002, the first World Cup to be held in a continent other than Europe or the Americas.

The tournament took place at ten venues in South Korea, and ten venues in Japan – Yokohama, Saitama, Kobe, Shizuoka, Osaka, Miyagi, Oita, Niigata, Ibaraki and Sapporo with a total of 64 matches being played over 4 weeks. Thirty two teams took part in the group stages with the undoubted shock being the elimination of defending champions France without scoring a single goal. England lost out narrowly in the Quarter Finals to Brazil, and Germany and Brazil narrowly defeated surprise semi-finalists South Korea and Turkey respectively to reach the Final. In the Final in Yokohama, Brazil defeated Germany 2-0 in front of 69,000 spectators, with two second-half goals from Ronaldo.

Two official programmes, one in Japanese/English and one in Korean/English were produced for the Tournament. The Japanese programme is 136 x A4 colour pages and the Korean programme 132 x A4 colour pages. Both programmes have similar contents with details and photos of the venues, the competing teams and their World Cup records and the history of previous World Cups. The Japanese also produced an excellent 240 page official guide shown below. The 20 page Preliminary Draw Programme and the 52 page official concert programme below are also interesting memorabilia items.