Listed below are the dates and results for the

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...

qualification rounds for

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

teams. A total of 51 teams took part, divided in 8 groups – five groups of six teams each and three groups of seven teams each – competing for 13 places in the World Cup.

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, the hosts, were already qualified, for a total of 14 European places in the tournament. The qualifying process started on 18 August 2004, over a month after the end of

UEFA Euro 2004 The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial association football, football competition contested by the List of men's national associatio ...

, and ended on 16 November 2005.

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, which transitioned from the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

to UEFA after the end of the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea/Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

, debuted in the European qualifiers. The teams in each group played against each other in a home and away basis. The team with the most points in each group qualified to the World Cup. The runners up were ranked against each other. For fairness rules, results against the seventh placed team were ignored, in groups of seven teams. The two best ranked runners-up also qualified to the World Cup. The other six runners-up were drawn into three two-legged knock out matches, the playoff winners also qualifying. The race to join hosts Germany at the 2006 FIFA World Cup featured an unlikely winner in Europe, where Ukraine became the first team to qualify, having finished above Turkey, Denmark and Greece in arguably the continent's toughest qualifying group.

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

had its first successful World Cup qualifying campaign in twenty years as they had missed the 1990 and 1994 tournaments, then qualified automatically as hosts in 1998 and as defending champions in 2002. Serbia and Montenegro and Croatia also advanced to Germany at the head of their sections, the former forcing Spain into the playoffs in the process. Besides the eight group winners, two teams progressed automatically as best runners up, namely Poland and Sweden while the playoffs offered a second chance to six others.

Qualification seeding (UEFA)

The draw was made on 5 December 2003 in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, Germany. Germany qualified automatically as hosts. The other seedings were determined by points per game in the qualifiers for 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification and

UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying Qualification for the 2004 UEFA European Championship took place between September 2002 and November 2003. Fifty teams were divided into ten groups, with each team playing the others in their group twice, once at home and once away. The top te ...

. France qualified automatically for the

as title holders, so only their record in UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying was used. Portugal qualified automatically for

as hosts, so only their record in World Cup 2002 was used. Kazakhstan were not ranked by this system as they did not participate in either competition. For domestic clubs involved in international club competitions reasons, England, France, Italy and Spain were drawn into groups of 6 teams.

First round

Summary

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Group 7

Group 8

Play-offs

Ranking of runners-up

Because three groups each had seven teams and the others each had six, matches against the 7th placed team were discarded for the purposes of the ranking

Matches

Qualified teams

The following 14 teams from UEFA qualified for the final tournament. :

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

² Competed as

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. A separate team for

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

also participated in qualifications during this time, having only competed in 1974.

³ From 1930 to 1998,

Serbia and Montenegro The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or simply Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and commonly referred to as FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe locate ...

competed as

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

⁴ From 1934 to 1990, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

competed as

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

Top goalscorers

Below are full goalscorer lists for all groups and the play-off round: *

Group 1 Group 1 may refer to: * Alkali metal, a chemical element classification for Alkali metal * Group 1 (motorsport), a regulation set of the FIA for series-production touring cars used in motorsport. * Group One Thoroughbred horse races, the leading e ...

Group 2 The term Group 2 may refer to: * Alkaline earth metal The alkaline earth metals are six chemical elements in group (periodic table), group 2 of the periodic table. They are beryllium (Be), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), strontium (Sr), barium (B ...

Group 3 Group 3 may refer to: * Group 3 element, chemical element classification * Group 3 (motorsport), FIA classification of cars used in auto racing and rallying * Group 3, the third tier of races in worldwide Thoroughbred horse racing * Group 3 image ...

Group 4 Group 4 may refer to: *Group 4 element Group 4 is the second group of transition metals in the periodic table. It contains only the four elements titanium (Ti), zirconium (Zr), hafnium (Hf), and rutherfordium (Rf). The group is also called the t ...

Group 5 Group 5 may refer to: * Group 5 element, chemical element classification * Group 5 (motorsport), FIA classification for cars in auto racing See also * G5 (disambiguation) {{Disambig ...

Group 6 Group 6 may refer to: * Group 6 element, chemical element classification * Group 6 (motorsport), FIA classification for sports car racing * Group 6 Rugby League, rugby league competition in New South Wales, Australia {{disambig ...

Group 7 Group 7 may refer to: * G7, an international group of finance minister *Group 7 element, chemical element classification *Halogens The halogens () are a group (periodic table), group in the periodic table consisting of six chemically related c ...

Group 8 Group 8 may refer to: * Group 8 (Sweden), a feminist movement in Sweden * Group 8 element, a series of elements in the Periodic Table * Group 8 Rugby League, a rugby league competition * G8, or Group of 8, an inter-governmental political forum f ...

* Play-offs

References

External links

UEFA Qualifier results with full game box scores
at Scoreshelf.com {{2006 FIFA World Cup qualifiers

FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)

FIFA World Cup qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is a set of competitive matches that a national association football team plays in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the men's FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments ar ...