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At World Cup 1998, Brazil's group matches attracted more viewers than any other team. Initiative's most recent ViewerTrack shows that during the group phase of World Cup 2006, Brazil is again the most watched team.

As Initiative predicted before World Cup 2006 kicked-off, average global audiences have been higher for Brazil's matches than for any other team during the group stages. Brazil v Croatia has been the most watched match to date globally, with an average live programme audience of 124m viewers across 53 markets.

Other tournament favourites are also proving to be popular with TV fans. Germany, Italy, England and France make up the rest of the top five most watched teams during the group stage at World Cup 2006.

Tournament outsiders are less popular in terms of in-home TV audiences. The least watched teams during the group stage of World Cup 2006 were Iran, Trinidad & Tobago and Serbia & Montenegro. These teams failed to win any of their matches at this year's World Cup.

Group matches involving the tournament favorites were also most popular in previous World Cups. The top five most watched teams during the group stages of the last three World Cups were:

World Cup 1998
1 Brazil
2 Italy
3 England
4 Germany
5 Spain

World Cup 2002
1 Italy
2 France
3 Germany
4 England
5 Brazil

World Cup 2006
1 Brazil
2 Germany
3 Italy
4 England
5 France

Brazil dropped to the fifth most-watched team during the group stages of World Cup 2002. Despite attracting a wide global fan base, the Brazilian team is still most popular in South America where many of the live matches were broadcast in the middle of the night in 2002.

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