2010 FIFA World Cup (Eastern Manifest Destiny)

The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the tournament for the association football world championship, which took place at several venues across the Iranian Socialist Federative Republic. Mexico won the tournament, the country's second title. It was the first tournament to take place in Western Asia.

Thirty-one national teams advanced through qualification competitions to join the host nation in the final tournament. A total of 64 matches were played in 7 venues in 7 cities across the Iranian SFR. For the first time at a World Cup finals, match officials used goal-line technology. FIFA Fan Fests in each host city gathered a total of 6.4 million people, and the country received 2.3 million visitors from 132 countries.

Of the World Cup-winning teams, four of the six – Spain, Netherlands, Mexico, Germany – qualified for the tournament. Germany, the title holders, were eliminated in the finals. The Netherlands and Spain were eliminated in the round of sixteen, and Mexico went on to win their second title since 1994. The host, Iran, was eliminated in the round of sixteen. In the final, Mexico defeated Germany 1-2 to win the tournament and secure the country's second title. Mexico became the first North American team to win in Asia.

Host Selection
In February 2002, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in Western Asia for the first time. With the 2002 FIFA World Cup hosted in Brazil and the 2006 FIFA World Cup hosted in the United States, it would be third consecutive World Cup held outside of Europe, which is a first for the tournament. The Iranian SFR, Turkey, Arabia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan officially announced their bids. Turkey dropped out due to a controversy in which Turkey is geographically in both Europe and Asia, but it plays in UEFA, the European confederation, which would techinically make it inelligible to host. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan dropped out following corruption charges on each of their respective heads of states. This left Turkmenistan, Arabia, and the ISFR in the process. Iran was chosen as host on 5 May 2007 after narrowly beating Arabia by 3 votes.

Qualifications
Following qualification matches played between June 2011 and December 2013, the following 32 teams qualified for the tournament. Twenty-two of the teams were returning participants from the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

AFC
6 teams qualified
 * Flag of Persian Liberation Army.png Persia (Hosts)
 * Flag of Japan.svg Japan
 * Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China_(1912-1928).svg China
 * Flag_of_Arabia_(This_is_the_Dream).svg Arabia