The 20th FIFA World Cup is set to commence on June 12 to July 13, 2014 and will be held in a total of 12 different cities in Brazil.

Thirty-two national teams have qualified for this year's World Cup in Brazil and will be competing for the title of World Champions. However, to do so, a team must attempt to dethrone 2010 World Cup Champions Spain, who have arguably been the best team over the majority of the past decade now.

Qualifiers will play a total of 64 matches on 12 key locations in the hosting country including Sao Paolo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilia among others.

Also for the first time in history, the FIFA committee has said it will be using goal-line technology to help referees in tight goal line decisions, so that goals such as Frank Lampard's against Germany for England that was disallowed despite being many inches over the line in the last World Cup, will not cause such controversy.

That Lampard goal would have seen England score two goals within minutes, and would have pulled them back to 2-2 against the German team, perhaps changing the momentum and course of the game. However, as the goal was disallowed it was Germany who proceeded with greater confidence and ultimately prevailed. Whether that disallowed goal, as well as many other controversial goal-line decisions, would have changed the results in past games is not known. But FIFA has taken many years to warm up to the use of technology in games, and this year's World Cup will be first time every such technology is being used on the game's biggest tournament.

The group stage of World Cup 2014 is composed of eight groups of four teams, where each team will play each of the other three teams in its group. Each winning team will be awarded 3 points, one point for a draw, and zero for a loss. Only the first and second placed teams will advance to the second round knockout stage of the tournament.

Below are the eight different groupings for this year's World Cup in Brazil.

Fans will notice that hosts Brazil are in Group A, and will face tough competition from near neighbors Mexico, as well as tricky games against African side Cameroon, and European team Croatia.

Current Holders Spain are in Group B with Holland, and that will be a big test for them. Chile are also in that group, and they will fancy their chances of causing an upset by knocking out one of those big European teams as they are in Latin America, where they will be much more used to the climate and pitches.

Another big group is Group D where England and Italy have been drawn against one another. This is one of the most difficult groups in the World Cup, as it not only contains those two massive teams from Europe, but also Uruguay and Costa Rica - both very strong teams who will believe they can claim a shock and knock out one of those more internationally established teams.

Meanwhile, the USA have been drawn in Group G and have a very tough challenge to make it out of the group stages. They are in a group with Germany and Portugal - two of the most flair and skilled teams in Europe. They will have to cause an upset against one of those to progress, as well as see off the threat from a strong Ghana outfit.

Group A: Brazil, Croatia, Cameroon, and Mexico

Group B: Spain, Netherlands, Australia, and Chile

Group C: Colombia, Ivory Coast, Greece, and Japan

Group D: England, Uruguay, Italy, and Costa Rica

Group E: Switzerland, France, Ecuador, and Honduras

Group F: Argentina, Nigeria, Iran, and Bosnia

Group G: Germany, Ghana, Portugal, and USA

Group H: Algeria, Belgium, South Korea, and Russia

The semi-finals are scheduled to take place on July 8 in Belo Horizonte and July 9 in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

A face off for the third place is scheduled for July 12 16:00 EST, while the World Cup Final 2014 match is to take place on July 13, 2014 at 15:00 EST.

Some tickets are still available on the FIFA official website or some games may also have tickets available for purchase in Brazil. There are four ticket categories, one of which is reserved for local Brazilian residents.