Question: When is it too early to begin getting into a frothy lather about a World Cup?
Obvious answer: What, are you kidding? Never!
The numbers crunchers at FIFA remind us this morning that the world is but 500 days away from its next World Cup. It makes me want a really ginormous advent-type calendar to begin plucking, marking the days.
FIFA.com has crunched some other numbers for us to celebrate the 500-days-out milepost. Among the more interesting ones:
64 … the number of years that have elapsed since the last World Cup in soccer-mad Brazil, back in 1950.
31 … Teams that will join host Brazil. (Remember, it wasn’t so long ago that just 24 teams competed at the World Cup finals. The last 24-team field: World Cup USA in 1994.)
19 … The number of World Cup finals in which Brazil has participated, also known as “all of them.” Brazil is the only nation to have done so.