By David Owen
June 15 – The Maracanã, along with Wembley probably the most famous stadium in world football, on Sunday hosts its first World Cup finals match for 64 years, when Lionel Messi’s Argentina take on tournament debutants Bosnia & Herzegovina.
June 15 – Messi vs Dzeko, Msssi has scored once in 571 mnutes of World Cup football, Dzeko scoed 10 in qualifying. France have never played Honduras beore, the Swiss have never played Ecuador.
June 14 – Group D debuts. Rooney hasn’t scored for 594 minutes in World Cup football, Diego Forlan scored 3 of Uruguay’s last 5, Itay have scored in last 14 of their World Cup games, Costa Rica have lost their last 4 games at the World Cup.
June 14 – Group C’s vital stats. Colombia’s keeper is the oldest player in Brazil, Greece kept eight clean sheets in qualifying, Japan have qualified for the last five World Cups and Ivory Coast the last three.
By Andrew Warshaw in Brazil
June 14 – While world champions Spain suffered one of their worst ever humiliations on the pitch in recent memory after being thrashed 5-1 by Holland today, off the pitch embarrassment of a different kind was heaped on Franz Beckenbauer, the best-known figure in the history of German football, when he was banned for 90 days for breaking FIFA’s Code of Ethics.
June 13 – Here are the key stats you need to know before embarrassing yourself infront of your colleagues, opponents or the opposition game day FA president. The first round of Group A closes, Group B opens. Brazil won last night, according to the conventional script, but what do the refs have in store for us today.
By Mark Baber
June 13 – California-based Google is taking the World Cup very seriously, with a world cup theme for the opening day, football-specific content and a trends page which helps understand what fans are searching for on the web and even, the company claims, the mood of each nation.
By Paul Nicholson
June 13 – The CONCACAF congress last week included on its agenda the first report of its newly created Sports Integrity Department, delivered by Dr Laila Mintas. Her report included results on investigated cases and the announcement of a whistleblower hotline for fans, players, coaches and executives.
June 13 – Roman Abramovich is reportedly situating himself to take a 55% controlling stake in RCD Mallorca. Mallorca currently plays in the Spanish Segunda División, narrowly avoiding relegation at the end of the 2013/2014 season. The club had dropped for the top division the year before.
By Ben Nicholson
June 13 – Popular online game ‘World of Tanks’ is introducing a feature that pays homage to the FIFA World Cup. The game throws us some interesting geo-political possibilities and puts real world and national feuding on to an intriguing new level.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
June 12 – Otelul Galati has announced plans to find a new investor who can put the Romanian club’s finances into order. But with its owner Dan Adamescu, who is said to be the second-richest Romanian, recently arrested over charges of bribery, the club could have difficulties in finding a suitable partner.
So just how historically significant will it turn out to be?
The moment Neymar’s left-foot shot from 22 metres eluded Pletikosa’s outstretched hand, hit a post and trickled across the line.
‘It’s only a game of football’ is a line we have all heard before. Never could it be less fitting than Brazil’s opening match in the 2014 World Cup.
Defeat against Croatia, or even a draw, could have had nasty consequences on the streets of Brazil,
And so, with a final flourish, Sepp Blatter got out his cheque-book and wrote out a cheque for $200 million. No, the FIFA President’s closing gesture at this week’s FIFA Congress was not quite that dramatic. But his promise of $750,000 to all 209 national associations and $7 million to each of the six confederations has the same effect.
To which my question is this: has this $198.75 million of apparently extra expenditure already been written in to FIFA’s budgets?
By Andrew Warshaw
June 13 – UEFA have been forced to backtrack over their home-grown player demands following pressure from the international players’ union, FIFpro.
As dusk fell over Sao Paulo’s spanking new stadium towards the end of the first half of the World Cup’s eagerly awaited kickoff, FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his organisation must have felt the same as the rest of us.
Amidst a sea of yellow and a cauldron of noise, here was an opening match full of entertainment and adventure in contrast to the cautious, cat-and-mouse approach that so often fails to deliver at the start of the biggest sporting show on earth for fear of errors being made and confidence being damaged.