The football World Cup currently underway in Brazil is not only a battle between two teams on the pitch and 32 nations overall, but also a battle off the field. Although eight different companies provide…
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World Cup – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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The 2014 World Cup has already seen a significant volume of Twitter conversation across a number of (English language) keywords, including #joinin, #worldcup, #Brazil2014 and #worldcup2014, as well as…
From the perspective of fairness, the 2014 World Cup has been off to a remarkably bad start. The opening game included at least two highly questionable decisions by the referee. First, the very generous…
Let’s be realistic. Australia is the lowest ranked of the 32 teams in the World Cup, and despite a very creditable performance in its first match against Chile, its chances of making it out of the group…
It is often said that football is the beautiful game, resistant to the kinds of doping seen in cycling, baseball or less beautiful games of the same name. Much like Australia’s confidence before its “blackest…
The offside rule is perhaps one of the most controversial rules ever applied to football. We only need to look to Mexico vs Cameroon on day two of the 2014 World Cup. Thank god for the 61st minute goal…
Forget Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Mario Balotelli. What will make your country more (or less) likely to succeed in the World Cup is its rate of economic growth. At this point, I expect European…
Fan or foe, chances are over the next four weeks you’ll catch at least parts of World Cup matches, whether through bleary eyes in the wee hours or snippets on the evening news. If you’re unfamiliar with…
While watching their national teams play in the World Cup, spectators may have their attention drawn away from the “beautiful game” on the pitch to the beautiful people off the pitch – the footballers…
It is hard to imagine a World Cup in which Germany, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, the Netherlands, England, France and Spain did not appear, or in which one of them did not win. What is it that makes some…
The late, great “Captain Socceroo”, Johnny Warren, always used to challenge the people who ran football in Australia with this blunt demand: We should be aiming to win the World Cup, not just trying to…
The football World Cup may be yet to kick off, but there have already been innumerable discussions on the various playing styles that each country will adopt. Will they play a 4-4-2, a 4-2-3-1, or a straight…
It’s June 25, 1978, and a six-year-old Irish boy is watching TV. What he sees that night will remain with him forever. Argentina won the football World Cup on home soil – the last time the event was held…
Australia will soon begin its fourth football World Cup finals campaign – the third successive tournament it has qualified for – with group stage matches against Chile, the Netherlands and Spain. While…
Football fever may not be the only thing spreading when hundreds of thousands of sports fans converge on Brazil for the FIFA World Cup this June and July. Mass events such as the Olympic and Commonwealth…
Like most Australians, I will be staying up late to watch our country play in the FIFA World Cup. But I will also be watching the other World Cup. We’re being bombarded by pre-publicity for the Football…
In 1863, the newly formed English Football Association (FA) drew up and published the first Laws of the Game of football. The aim was to provide a set of universal rules to govern the various forms of…
Of the dangers facing travellers to Brazil for the World Cup, yellow fever is one of the least likely to pose a real threat. But there are two important things to know about the illness. First, it’s a…
Brazil is famous for many things: samba, football and beaches, but also its favelas, the poor neighbourhoods that encircle its cities. These areas are often on invaded lands in middle and upper-class neighbourhoods…
What lives in Brazil and looks like a football? Brazil’s official World Cup mascot. The three-banded armadillo is a mammal native to Brazil’s dry tropical forests, and rolls into a ball when threatened…
The host nations of major sporting tournaments like the football World Cup are usually obsessed with the international status and prestige that comes with holding these events. However, the impact that…
During last year’s Confederations Cup football tournament in Brazil, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the country’s streets to demand change. Protests that started with a clear opposition…
It doesn’t matter if you’re a hard-core football nut, a once-every-four-years fan or even a psychic animal – most of us speculate on the winner of the World Cup. The 2014 competition is held in Brazil…
This year’s FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics seem to be a coronation of Brazil’s undeniable and startling success. But with the Brazilian presidential elections looming later this year, a surge in…
High-tech robots called PackBots will be unleashed during the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil to help boost security and examine suspicious objects. The Brazilian government purportedly spent US$7.2 million…