Globally, soccer has become one of the most followed sports, attracting a massive fanbase on social media and TV. Some soccer competitions attract about 3 billion viewers, including the FIFA world cup.

Football competitions are mainly divided into domestic competitions and international tournaments. The domestic leagues provide soccer entertainment every other week, but fans go wild with excitement whenever it is time for the major tournaments. The anticipation is often very palpable in the atmosphere, and each team’s fans will go to considerable lengths to provide their support.

Some of the most famous soccer tournaments are listed below.

1. The FIFA World Cup

The FIFA world cup started in 1930 when Uruguay hosted the first tournament. The Federation of International Football Association organizes the competition and chooses a host country every four years to host the tournament.

It is the most prestigious competition in modern soccer, as it attracts male national teams from countries worldwide. These teams play a qualifiers stage to pick the representative teams within the continent.

Afterward, the qualified teams proceed to a single robin group stage format, consisting of 32 teams. The best 16 will then compete in a knockout manner for the winner.

The current world cup holder is the France national team, lifting the trophy in 2018. However, Brazil remains the best team in the world cup. Their national team has lifted the world cup 6 times, and they always display mercurial talent on the pitch, producing some of the best players in the world cup tournaments.

2. UEFA Champions League

The UEFA Champions League is the most-watched club tournament globally, attracting hundreds of millions of viewers to its final matches. It is also the richest soccer competition globally, with a lot of sponsors investing heavily in the competition every season.

UEFA reformed the European Champions Cup in 1992 into the Champions League. The current format replaced the old knockout-only system of playing.

The Champions League features the top teams in Europe’s domestic leagues. Thirty-two teams are drawn into groups of 4 and play against themselves in a double robin system to get the best 16. These will then compete in a knockout format to produce a winner.

The most successful club in Europe’s most prestigious competition is Real Madrid, clinching the title an amazing 13 times to date. The current champions are Chelsea, who have won the trophy twice in less than ten years. Other similarly successful clubs include AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, and Barcelona.

3. Continental competitions

The major continental competitions include:

• Copa America was initially for South American countries. But since the 1990s, it has included North and Central American and even Asian nations. It is the oldest and most passionate national team competition because of the amount of talent that plays there. Its most successful participants are Uruguay and Argentina, who have won it 14 times each.
• The UEFA European Championship, popularly known as Euros. The male national teams challenge for the cup, which is held every four years, between world cup intervals. The most successful teams are Germany and Spain, who have won it three times each.

The competitions listed above are the most popularly followed soccer events in modern times. The Champions League is still ongoing, while the FIFA World Cup will hold in Qatar later this year.