10 historical facts you might want to know about the Fifa World Cup:

We are on an international break. Tomorrow, the planet will come alive again with World Cup qualification matches.

Our Super Eagles are currently training in Rabat ahead of Saturday's clash with Algeria in Algiers. After that they travel to Russia to face Argentina in a friendly.

Now, here are 10 historical facts you might want to know about the World Cup:

[1] Do you k know that the first ever World Cup was hosted by Uruguay in 1930? There were 13 teams that participated in this tournament - Argentina, Uruguay, USA, Yugoslavia, France, Mexico, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Romania, Peru and Paraguay

[2] Back then, teams used to travel by boat, so few European teams chose to participate because of the difficulty of travelling to South America. Only Four European teams - Yugoslavia, Romania, France and Belgium were present

[3] I am surprised though that England, who have always laid claims to be the home of football and the developers of the modern game were not present. Do you know that England did not in fact feature in the World Cup until 1950, which was the fourth tournament. They withdrew from Fifa in 1920 and only returned in 1946. England basically did not want to feature in a tournament with countries it had been at war with and as usual, the normal British arrogance of objecting to "foreign interference" in our football was also an issue

[4] Uruguay won the first ever World Cup, beating Argentina 4-2 in the final

[5] Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. Hence why Brazil is the only team to have ever participated in every tournament so far

[6] In 1938, hosts Italy were still required to qualify, the first and only time the host nation was not granted automatic qualification

[7] The 1934 World Cup was the first for which teams had to qualify to take part. Africa and Asia were offered one slot, which Egypt took up. Egypt was placed in a group with Turkey and Palestine, then a British mandate. Turkey withdrew and Egypt beat Palestine 7-1 in Cairo and 4-1 in Jerusalem to qualify for the World Cup finals. In 1934, Egypt lost 2-4 to Hungary in Naples with Abdulrahman Fawzi scoring twice to become the first African to score at the World Cup finals

[8] In 1954, Egypt was the only African country to apply to compete at the World Cup. They were placed in a two-team group with Italy, but lost 1-2 in Cairo and 1-5 in Milan and thus did not qualify

[9] In 1962, Morocco sought to be the second African country to qualify for the World Cup. After elominating Tunisia and Ghana, Morocco proceeded to a Uefa/Caf playoff with Spain. They lost both legs of this playoff, meaning that no African nation made it to the World Cup finals for the fifth time in a row

[10] Fifa's allocation of only one place to three continents (Africa, Asia, Oceania) was subject to significant criticism, especially given the large increase in applications from newly independent African countries. After Ffa confirmed the allocation, the remaining fifteen African nations withdrew in protest. As such by 1970, Fifa was forced to grant Africa an automatic slot, which Morocco took up. At the 1970 World Cup, Morocco was placed in Group Four along with West Germany, Peru, and Bulgaria. They lost 1–2 to eventual semi-finalists West Germany, lost 0–3 to Peru and drew 1–1 with Bulgaria