June 16 – INSIDEworldfootball journalists and columnists are peppered all around Brazil. Here chief correspondent Andrew Warshaw, currently loose in Brazil, rounds up some of the off-the-field activity so far.
Colombians roughed up
Part of the gloss came off Colombia’s excellent win over Greece after their late-night arrival at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport after the short flight from Belo Horizionte. The Colombians say they were roughly treated by security officers and that the police escort taking them to their base only drve at 20kmh to the annoyance of tired players and officials. Mauricio Correa, a Colombian federation spokesman, said: “They pushed some people from our staff. We have already made the complaint to FIFA and asked for immediate replacement of all the police concerned.”
Record to be broken
A couple of stats ahead of England’s upcoming showdown with Uruguay. The Three Lions have now lost two in a row include if you include their elimination at 2010 but have never recorded three straight defeats. By contrast Uruguay’s third consecutive loss, against Costa rica, equalled their worst ever losing streak between 1970 and 1974. Something has to give …
Swiss give the president something to cheer about
Sepp Blatter has been keeping a low profile since the World Cup began after all the publicity, good and not so good, generated at the FIFA congress. But Sunday he understandably went to watch his native Switzerland open their tournament with a win against Ecuador.
Stadiums fill up
As usual there are empty spaces at most World Cup venues. But the 97.1 percent average attendance is good going and equates to 385,687 spectators for the eight first games of the tournament.
Getting social
This is very much the World Cup of global social media. The top match for tweets so far by a country mile has been England-Italy which had 7.2 million tweets, according to FIFA, with Daniel Sturridge’s equaliser leading to 219,637 tweets per minute.
Digging for the real story
Don’t believe everything you read about World Cup infrastructure being behind schedule is what the Brazilian authorities would love to have us believe. But guess what’s the first thing you see after exiting the baggage hall at one of the two airports in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third largest city? Cement mixers, steel girders, ladders and all manner of other construction tools in what is clearly still a work in progress.
Mistaken identity
Returning to my hotel after attending the opening game of the World Cup, the media bus I was travelling in was suddenly cheered on its way by an enthusiastic roadside crowd of about 30 fans craning their necks to see who we were. Their action was prompted by two police motorbikes ahead which may have wrongly given the impression we were being given a special escort. Once the fans realised the bus was full of hacks and not players, interest faded rapidly.
World’s political heavy hitters stay away
FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Brazil’s president Dilma Roussef, neither of them vastly popular with local fans, decided not make official addresses at the opening ceremony – no doubt remembering they were roundly booed at the opening event of the Confederations Cup a year ago. Meanwhile only nine heads of state or government apparently attended the opening game, far fewer than had been expected.
Vanishing spray makes its World Cup competition debut
Vanishing spray to stop players encroaching at freekicks was used for the first time at a World Cup in the opening game here – and will continued to be employed where necessary. At freekicks near the penalty area, the referee sprays a circle round the ball and paces out 10 yards from where it has been placed. The line marks the position where the defensive wall should stand and the spray disappears within a minute. The system has been used in Brazilian and Argentine football for several seasons, and was also trialled at last year’s FIFA Under-20 World Cup.
Houllier gets fresh
Gerard Houllier, the former France and Liverpool manager who these days heads up FIFA’s technical study group at the World Cup, has a theory as to why Spain were crushed by Holland: too many of their players were still recovering from last month’s all-Spanish Champions League final. La Liga was the last major European to finish and Houllier says freshness of mind and body was always going to prove crucial in Brazil. “Freshness is a key criteria and ingredient for success in a big competition,” he told a media briefing. “Fortunately [for the World Cup], apart from the teams that played the Champions League Final, all the teams had time to recover properly. But a number of players from Spain had played the final which was a nerve-breaking type of final which drains a lot of your energy. Maybe next time they’ll be better. Remember, Spain also lost their first game in South Africa and still finished as champions so you never know what’s going to happen.”