[1] The most recent winners of the six continental championships appeared in the tournament, along with hosts Brazil and UEFA Euro 2012 runners-up Italy, who qualified because the Euro 2012 winners, Spain, had also won the most recent FIFA World Cup in 2010 thus securing a spot in the tournament.

The draw for the competition was held at the Palácio das Convenções in the Anhembi Convention Center in São Paulo, Brazil on 1 December 2012.

[18][19] The competition's dates were confirmed by FIFA on 27 July 2011 in the build-up to the draw for the 2014 World Cup's preliminary qualification rounds.

[25] Source: FIFA[26][27] Júlio César Dani Alves Sergio Ramos Thiago Silva David Luiz Andrés Iniesta Andrea Pirlo Paulinho Neymar Fernando Torres Fred Luiz Felipe Scolari Source: FIFA[28] Fernando Torres was awarded the Golden Boot award on tie-breakers.

Both he and Fred scored five goals and made one assist, but Torres was given the award due to having played fewer minutes over the tournament.

[32] The competing national football associations received prize money from FIFA based on their representative team's final finishing position.

[37] The demonstrations were part of wider unrest and rioting in Brazilian cities initially sparked by increased ticket prices on public transport, but growing to express deeper public disenchantment with the financial management of the country by its government, specially due to the high inflation.

[38] Further protests took place the following day prior to the game between Mexico and Italy in Rio de Janeiro.

[39][40] Blatter said that the protesters "should not use football to make their demands heard",[41] and that the public expenditure on staging the tournaments was on "items that are for the future, not just for the World Cup".

[45] Just before the final in Rio de Janeiro, a large crowd marched towards the stadium both in support of the team and in continuation over the original protests.