2014 World Cup begins

Despite widespread protests and violence the 20th edition of the FIFA World Cup begins in Brazil on Thursday with the hosts taking on Croatia in the opening match in Sao Paulo.

It is the second time Brazil will be hosting the competition, the previous being in 1950, when they endured a heartbreaking defeat to Uruguay in the final.

After winning last year’s FIFA Confederations Cup, the hosts, who have won the World Cup five times, are the major favourites to reclaim the trophy won by Spain four years ago in South Africa. However, perennial contenders Germany, Italy and Argentina will be waiting to spoil the party for the Brazilians.

Brazil are hoping to become the first nation to win the World Cup on home soil since France did it in 1998.

World Cup history

In 1930, FIFA held the first World Cup tournament in Montevideo, Uruguay with the hosts emerging winners of the inaugural tournament.

After another two events in 1934 (Italy) and 1938 (France), there was a 12-year break due to the World War, before recommencing in 1950 in Brazil. Since then, the World Cup has been held every four with Brazil, the most successful team, the only country to have competed in every finals series.

African representatives

African champions Nigeria, who are in Group F alongside two-time champions Argentina, Iran and debutants Bosnia, lead four other countries namely Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Algeria as the continent’s representatives at this edition of the Mundial.

Nigeria will open their tournament campaign against Iran on Monday.

Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, has kept faith with the majority of the players that won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, bringing in the experienced striker Osaze Odemwingie and Joseph Yobo, who returns as team captain.

Youngsters Uche Nwofor and Ramon Azeez have also been brought in as Keshi aims to blend experience and youth in the squad while best player at January’s African Nations Championship, Ejike Uzoenyi, was a late replacement for injured Monaco left-back, Elderson Echiejie.

Cameroon are making a record seventh appearance while captain Samuel Eto’o will be making his fifth appearance at the finals.

Group A

Brazil, who were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the last two tournaments, have won 15 of their last 16 matches, but a below par outing against Serbia in their last preparatory game before the World Cup, has raised questions about the ability of Felipe Scolari’s squad to deliver when the chips are down.

Barcelona 22-year-old forward Neymar has the huge burden of leading the squad to a sixth triumph on home soil. He would be complemented by other youthful players Oscar, Willian, while captain Thiago Silva will lead from behind.

Croatia, led by Real Madrid playmaker Luka Modric, will hope to pull off a monumental upset today but coach Niko Kovac’s side won’t be at full strength against the hosts.

Forward Mario Mandzukic, who was red-carded in the team’s final qualifier, will miss the crucial opener while the experienced Niko Kranjcar was dropped from the squad because of a late hamstring injury.

The other teams in the group Cameroon and Mexico will take to the field in Friday’s only game but while the hosts are huge favourites, it would be difficult to pick who joins them in the next round of the competition.

Group B

Defending champions Spain will play Holland in a replay of the 2010 final. Both sides are favoured to advance ahead of Chile and Australia.

Group C

Colombia and Greece will open hostilities in Group C on Saturday before Ivory Coast and Japan take to the field next day. This is probably the last chance for the underperforming golden generation of Ivory Coast footballers like Didier Drogba, Emmanuel Eboue, the Toure brothers Kolo and Yaya, and others to create a positive impact on the international scene

Group D

This is a very tough group with all the four teams standing a chance of moving ahead to the Round of 16. The group promises to be explosive as three-time champions Italy, two-time champions Uruguay, 1966 champions England and Costa Rica all jostle for a knockout ticket.

Group E

France are overwhelming favourites here but Switzerland and Ecuador are two teams that can test the might of Les Bleus. Honduras are the outsiders.

Group F

Once again the Super Eagles are drawn against Argentina. Both teams have met thrice in the competition (1994, 2002 and 2010) and the South Americans triumphed on all occasions. Nigeria begin their campaign on Monday against Iran while Bosnia Herzegovina engage the Argentines in the other group game.

Group G

Tagged the Group of Death, analysts pick Germany and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal as the two teams who will advance to the next stage of the competition while Ghana and USA, despite their fighting spirits, will battle for the scraps.

Group H

Belgium are the hottest team going into the World Cup. The group, which also parades South Korea, Russia and Algeria, looks relatively soft, with Russia as the main competition for the Belgians but South Korea could be the banana skin in this group though.

World Cup Vs Women Abuse Alert!!!

A woman subjected to years of sexual abuse and violence has told how she was battered during the World Cup.

She is now urging other vulnerable people, mainly women, to seek help as the 2014 competition gets under way.

Mother-of-three Terri-Louise Graham, whose ex-partner Greg Logue was jailed earlier this year for nine years for abusing her between 2008 and 2011, said his violence against her increased during the 2010 World Cup. Shocking findings from Women's Aid showed that during the last tournament the number of assaults soared in the immediate aftermath of matches.

Figures showed that attacks on women by men rose by up to 30%.

An increased consumption of alcohol and more time spent in the home together watching matches have been blamed for the increased risk.

"He wasn't even a football enthusiast, but he used the World Cup as an excuse to drink more and more and when he returned home he then took his drunken anger out on me," Ms Graham said.

"The amount of money he spent on drink during that time was horrendous."

Ms Graham spoke out to support an initiative in Londonderry aimed at raising awareness of the problem.

Campaigners will visit up to 20 bars in the city centre and distribute specially-designed beer mats and information leaflets on the help available.

The five-week football competition gets under way this evening.

Women's Aid Federation Northern Ireland urged men and women to be aware of the potential of being attacked, and appealed to them to seek immediate help if they are at risk. "In our experience, the combination of risen tensions when watching matches and excessive alcohol consumption create an environment where perpetrators of abuse are more likely to commit extreme acts of physical violence," director Annie Campbell said.

"This doesn't mean that football causes domestic violence – in the vast majority of cases, domestic violence will already be present in the relationship, whether that is in the form of psychological, financial, emotional, physical or sexual abuse."

She added: "What events like the World Cup do is act as an excuse for perpetrators to commit physical violence and lower their inhibitions so that the violence is more extreme."

Police said violence would not be tolerated and urged anybody with any concerns to contact them.

A campaign, Behind Closed Doors, also appeals to neighbours, friends and family to report abuse.

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WORDCUP: Eagles won’t disappoint - Stephen Keshi

Super Eagles Coach, Stephen Keshi

Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi says the team will not disappoint the country in the 2014 World Cup, kickoffnigeria.comreports.

The competition starts on Thursday and Nigeria will face Argentina, Bosnia and Iran in Group F. The team open their campaign in the tournament against Iran on June 16.

The Eagles failed to win any of their warm-up games, having drawn against Scotland and Greece, and suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the United States.

Many Nigerians fear the team could be sent packing from the group stages of the tournament.

The Eagles, who reached the second round at USA ’94 and France ’98, exited Korea/Japan 2002 and South Africa 2010 in the first round.

Keshi however insists that the results from the friendlies are not a true reflection of the strength of the team, saying the team will not disappoint.

The former Nigeria captain stated that the friendlies were meant to serve as rehearsals for the team, adding that the team were ready to do serious business in Brazil.

“We are in Brazil for serious business,” Keshi said.

“Friendlies are meant to serve as rehearsals; they are different from competitive matches.

“This is not an excuse for our performance in the matches, but seriously speaking, the results do not mean anything to me, evaluate us in the World Cup.”

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World Cup begins today, Sex vs Soccer

The Mexicans will be abstaining, one German is more open-minded while the Bosnians will only have themselves for company.

It's a debate as old as time -- should football stars keep it clean between the sheets to maximise athletic performance?

U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann is taking a relaxed view on in-competition coitus during the 2014 World Cup.

"I think we are very casual in the way we approach things," Klinsmann, a World Cup winner in 1990 with Germany, told Fusion TV.'

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"Their families can come pretty much any time. They will be at the games, they can come by at the hotel, we will have barbecues together.

"Every nation is different. I've played in different countries where, you know, you didn't see your girlfriend or your wife for two months. ... Every team and every country handles that differently, based on their culture.

"So I respect the Mexican approach because it's more their culture at that moment. I think we have a group of guys together and an environment together that is very open, very casual.

"But once we go on the field for training and also for the games, we are very serious and down to business."

As Klinsmann suggested, the Mexicans will be adopting a more chaste approach, with "El Tri" coach Miguel Herrera warning his players to restrain from sexual activity during the month-long tournament.

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"If a player can't go one month or 20 days without having sexual relations, then they are not prepared to be a professional player," Herrera told Mexican newspaper Reforma.

"All the players we have selected have a pretty good resume, they all have won great things, they have been champions, and they know what we want to achieve.

"So then we will not be looking for sex or having sex at the World Cup just to have it, we are going to go after what we came for, a competition that gives us the opportunity to rise above and do something really great. ... We talked about it because there was a buzz."

Music to the ears of Bosnia-Herzegovina's coach Safet Susic, who according to British newspaper the Daily Star, told his players "there will be no sex in Brazil."

Yet Susic, who is leading Bosnia at its first major tournament, has allowed one small concession.

"They can find another solution, they can even masturbate if they want. I am not interested what the other coaches do, this is not a holiday trip, we are there to play football at the World Cup."

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BRAZIL’S WORLD CUP BEGINS

Finally, after a great buildup, the 2014 World Cup of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, hosted by Brazil, that ultimate fútbol-playing country, begins on Thursday. The first game will be between Brazil and Croatia, at a stadium in São Paulo whose construction was still being finished this week and which has never held a capacity crowd. There is great expectation for fútbol fans, and a great media frenzy, too, with much attention focussed on Brazil’s supposed lack of preparedness for the tournament, its badly built new roads and bridges, its corruption and favelas and the lack of security of Brazil’s cities, and so forth, on and on.

It is excruciating to watch this full-glare inquisition. It feels unseemly. Brazil is a big, uneven, still-developing country that, paradoxically, most of us love from afar and romanticize unequivocally most of the time (aaah, Ipanema, Rio, Ronaldinho, Gisele Bündchen, samba!, and so forth).

Everything that has been said about Brazil’s shortcomings as a host may be true, but they are also true when hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists are welcomed to Brazil, year after year, to celebrate its Carnaval, to travel around its big, beautiful country, to enjoy its beaches and its backwoods—and yet somehow its lack of sufficient infrastructure, its violence, and its corruption are not inhibiting factors.

So what’s different now? This is not Putin’s Russia, where a megalomaniac gangster who has hijacked a state has spent fifty billion dollars for the purposes of self-aggrandizement. This is Brazil, the country everyone celebrated when it won the right to host this World Cup, and the next Olympics, too. This is the Brazil of the great beloved Pelé, and he was there, ecstatically hugging Lula, the bearded, wily left-winger who was President when Brazil was announced as the 2016 site. There were no serious questions, as there have been since Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, about whether Brazil had bought its bid with bribes to sports officials. Brazil and fútbol are synonymous. When Brazil won, it seemed right to everyone, and it still should.

Most Brazilians are poor and learn to play fútbol in vacant lots in crowded cities, or else in unadorned grassy squares in little rural towns without paved roads. They do so well and unstintingly that some of them go on to play with the best teams in the world; they have helped lead their country to World Cup triumph five times since 1958.

A Brazilian friend in São Paulo called me today. She wanted to know what I thought about all the criticism of Brazil. After a long preamble, in which she acknowledged that her government was not perfect, that the police were corrupt and her countrymen were maybe not as prepared as they should be for the great contest they were about to host, she said, “In spite of everything, I still think we Brazilians can do something that’s good, and that people will enjoy this Cup. Don’t you?”

I told her that I did, and I do. Long live Brazil. And now, the World Cup 2014.