Done some maths and looked at the teams left in the comp, this is how the last 16 looks

Europe - 6 out of 13 teams remain - 46%
Africa - 2 out of 5 teams remain - 40%
South America - 5 out of 6 teams remain - 83%
North America - 3 out of 4 teams remain - 75%
Asia/Australia - 0 out of 4 teams remain - 0%

...and it will still be a European or South American Winner as it has been for the previous 19 tournaments.

would be interesting to see how that compared to previous tournaments

just being picky but is not really north America as mexico and costa rica are central America

6 UEFA side made the last 16 in South Africa and 10 in 2006.

Continent they are in is North America and they are also in CONCACAF

2010

Europe - 6 out of 13 - 46%
South America - 5 out of 5 - 100%
Africa - 1 out of 6 - 16%
Asia/Australia/NZ - 2 out of 5 - 40%
North America - 1 out of 3 - 33%

never really considered mexico to be north America but i suppose from pure geographical terms it is

2006 World Cup in Germany

Europe - 10 out of 14 - 71%
South America - 3 out of 4 - 75%
North America - 1 out of 4 - 25%
Africa - 1 out of 5 - 20%
Asia/Australia - 1 out of 5 - 20%

NORTH america eh?
mexico and costa rica might be having words with you about that

The OP is right though. North America is the continent of which Central America is only a subset.

Geographically they are part of the North American continent. Central America is a region.

It will have levelled up a bit by the quarter finals

And your geography teacher will be having words with you

I thought the purpose of the World Cup is to be a Worldwide competition. Europe is not matching the 10 that qualified in 2006. But....

* Europe has the most countries in the last 16 with 6 (37.5%)

* Europe has more countries in the last 16 than the combined North America AND Africa AND Asia AND Oceania countries!

* The number of countries from each continent is the number FIFA believes can qualify for the last 16. So FIFA expects that Europe to fill 13 of the 16 (81.25%) whilst North America is a lowly 4 countries (only 25%)

That is why I am more interested in the European Championship than the World Cup. The World Cup has filler countries - like Australia, Cameroon and Honduras - to give it a global image. Whilst the European Championship has a fair qualification system so all countries in the finals are there on merit!

Unfortunately Euro 2016 will be expanded from 16 to 24 teams. So it will have some filler teams too.

A shame as the 16 team format was excellent, and until this World Cup I would say always more entertaining than the global tournament.

The geographical spread of the World Cup is totally deliberate of course. It's not about having the best 24 teams in the FIFA rankings in one tournament (if it was, we'd have a perpetual Europe vs South America battle), but finding the best teams from each continent and bringing them all together to compete.....it's as much about promoting football worldwide as anything else.

As a Welsh girl, I'm glad the Euros are now going to have 24 teams

What about Antarctica?

I preferred the Euros when there were only 8 teams. Tough to qualify for and both tournament groups were groups of death. England never came close to winning it in those days!

Tell you who should be embarrassed, South America. They had teams going out in both games yesterday!

Funny how the draw worked out for them. I know they are guaranteed at least one quarter finalist but i would wager they fancied getting more.

^ They're also guaranteed a semifinalist as well (since Brazil and Colombia play each other in the quarters).

Beg your pardon, that's what i meant.

6 of the 13 teams left are European

Yes but surely there's no fun in seeing Wales lose three times?