Soccer teams in Italy

Italian soccer has seen success and scandal in its history. Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Creatas/Getty Images

Soccer, or football as most of the world knows it, is a national passion in many countries, especially Italy. Italian soccer fans have good reason to be passionate: Their country's national team has won the World Cup championship four times and is consistently ranked among the best in the world. In addition, Italian league teams attract some of the top soccer talent in the world.

Italy's national soccer association, known as the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio, or FIGC, formed in 1898 and is a part of the Union of European Football Associations, or UEFA. According to the website Worldfootball.net, the Italian national team's nickname is the "Squadra Azzurra" or "Blue Squad, " a reference to the team's blue and white uniforms.

The International Federation of Association Football, the governing body of world soccer, held the first World Cup tournament in 1930. Since then, the FIFA World Cup has become one of the most popular sporting events in the world. Italy has won the World Cup four times, more than any nation except five-time winner Brazil. Italy won back-to-back World Cup titles in 1934 and 1938. Italy won its third World Cup at the 1982 tournament in Spain and its fourth in Germany in 2006.

Serie A is Italy's top professional soccer league, consisting of 20 of the country's top-ranked teams. Juventus of Turin has won the league title a record 27 times since the league's inception in the 1890s, World Football reports. International of Milan, better known as Inter, has won the Serie A title 18 times, including five consecutive times from 2006 to 2010. Another Milan club, AC Milan, has won the title 17 times.