FIFA world cup 2014 Trivia

Surprises in the tournament

It’s been one week since the FIFA World Cup 2014 opening ceremonies.

This has probably been the most anticipated event in world history after Judgement Day.

It’s been just a week, a seemingly insignificant amount of time, but not during football season.

This week's matches have left the world in shock and awe proving the fact that facts and rankings can mean jack in a game as unpredictable and unbiased as football.

If this World Cup has shown us anything it’s that even underdogs can stick it to the big boys in fact this isn’t an exception, it’s practically becoming the norm. We’ve seen celebration, heartbreak, routs, victories, defeats and hot fans, and the FIFA World Cup 2014 is only just warming up, surely it can only get more exiting in the weeks to come, here’s a list of some matches nobody would have ever thought possible, but happened anyway, because in football anything is possible:

The Spain vs. Netherlands Match: This match started off with a team comprising of the defending world champions with some of the best players in all of footballdom up against a team ranked 15th.

Victory looked almost certain for the Spaniards until the Dutch went all out and scored 5 goals against Spain’s measly 1.

This gave the Spanish team the hard knock they needed to realise that they aren’t invincible. Surely Spain wouldn’t lose again. Wrong!

The Spain vs. Chile Match: If you thought losing to your arch rival was bad, how about losing to a team that came 10th in a World Cup you came 1st in? (that is the FIFA World Cup 2010). Well, Spain did something unexpected (yet again), that broke millions of hearts (yet again), they lost (yet again) to the Chilean Football team 0-2 resulting in their elimination from the FIFA World Cup 2014. The world champions of 2010 didn’t even make it to the semi finals!

The Uruguay vs. England Match: England truly has some world class players, but that didn’t stop them from being beaten by Uruguay 2-1. This defeat compounded by England’s defeat at the hands of Italy in a previous match means that England is pretty much out of the World Cup.

The Netherlands vs. Australia Match: After completely decimating Spain, the Dutch football players must have felt like Gods (you would too if you could score a goal with a header like van Persie did) but their euphoria was short lived after they were (quite ironically) almost beaten by an underdog team, Australia.

The Dutch did finally manage to win (by scoring 3 goals against Australia’s 2) but one cannot forget how brilliantly the Australians played despite overwhelming odds, and that’s what football is all about, teamwork and dedication, not money, endorsements and Pitbull songs.

The Germany vs. Portugal Match: Two extremely strong teams went head to head in what fans assumed would be an epic battle, well it wasn’t. It was a complete disaster for the Portuguese, they lost 4 - 0.

-India.com

Interesting facts

2014 World Cup is the Most Expensive World Cup ever

Brazil wants to complete an unforgettable tournament. They did every little thing to make the 2014 World Cup better than all previous world cups. Brazil has already spent 14-16 billion US Dollars. The below list shows the total costs of the past five World Cups -

2010 South Africa: US$ 4 billion

2006 Germany: US$ 6 billion
2002 Japan/South Korea: US$ 5 billion
1998 France: US$ 340 million
1994 USA:US$ 30 million

South Africa World Cup was less expensive than the 2006 and 2002 FIFA World Cup.

The official 2014 World Cup album includes 17 songs

The official music album, which was released on May 12, contains 17 songs. There are two editions: Standard and Deluxe.

The standard Edition contains only 15 songs. The Deluxe Edition contains the 15 songs plus two bonus songs!

Police probe fans with wheelchairs

A group of supporters who appeared to jump out of their wheelchairs at Fifa World Cup 2014 games in Brazil are being investigated by police for ticket fraud

Police are looking into pictures from CCTV and social media which show supposedly wheelchair-bound Brazil fans standing during the opening game of the tournament in Sao Paulo, between the hosts and Croatia. Police believe some fans who bought tickets on the black market may have tried to cover their tracks by using wheelchairs to enter the stadium.

Many of the concession tickets designated for disabled fans have fallen into the hands of touts amid the scramble for tickets for some of the most popular games. There have also been cases of young adults being seen in seats reserved for pensioners. Touts have been selling tickets for disabled people outside stadiums and on social media websites such as Facebook. The scam is particularly profitable as each ticket for a wheelchair user comes with a free one for a companion. Selling a ticket for more than face value is a crime in Brazil, for which the maximum sentence is four years in prison. But tickets for Brazil matches have been on sale for around £1,000, as much as 10 times face value. One Rio tout was caught selling two tickets for the Spain v Chile match in the city for 1,200 Brazilian reals (£350). There are 22 pictures on CCTV which allegedly show supposedly wheelchair-bound fans standing up at the 66,000-seat Sao Paulo Arena, where England played on Thursday night.

Around 30 similar pictures have been taken by members of the public on their smart phones.

“The World Cup is creating miracles,” joked Brazil supporter Andrea Dias. However, the investigation is likely to be tricky and sensitive for police because some of the fans may be disabled and unable to walk long distances, but can still stand for short periods.

Vital statistics after match day 8

- A total of 23 matches have been played, so far
- A total of 66 goals have been scored, representing 2.9 goals per game.
- 63 yellow cards have been shown in the 20 matches played
- Five Red cards have been scored flashed in the tournament after 20 games
- A total of 7 spot kicks have been awarded and all of them have been converted

- England have lost their opening two games at a World Cup for the first time in their history: Losing to Italy and Uruguay

- England's defeat to Uruguay on Thursday lost two successive matches at the group phase in their 14 appearances at the mundial and this is the very first time since 1950, when Brazil hosted the World Cup: England beat Chile 2-0 before they were defeated by USA and Spain to be knocked out of the group phase of the World Cup in their maiden tournament.

- In 1950 when the tournament was hosted by Brazil, England presented the youngest team in their World Cup history and they failed to qualify from the group stage and co-incidentally England presented the second youngest team in their World Cup history for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and they stand the danger of elimination.

England need Italy to win their remaining group games against Costa Rica and Uruguay to stay in the tournament.

Roy Hodgson's side then need to beat Costa Rica in their final group game. England, Uruguay and Costa Rica would then each be on three points and qualification would be decided on goal difference.

- Statistics are not on England's side as no team has ever lost their opening two games at a World Cup and progressed from the group.

- England conceded eight goals in their past three World Cup games, as many as in the previous 14 games combined.

- Uruguay had two shots on target against England, and scored with both.

- Colombia completed a fine comeback of their own on Thursday, clinching a place in the last 16 of the competition for the first time since Italy 1990. Twenty-four years on from the exploits of Rene Higuita, Carlos Valderrama and Freddy Rincon et al, the Colombians have finally found a new breed ready to emulate the heroes of yesteryear.

- Colombia coach Jose Pekerman has now gone unbeaten in 7 World Cup matches after defeating Ivory Coast by 2-1 on Wednesday, which is the best among all the 32 coaches competing in the 2014 World. The Argentinian, who also took charge of La Albiceleste at Germany 2006, has overseen five victories and two draws in that run: As Argentina Coach at the 2006 World Cup, he won 3 matches and drew 2, but were knocked out of the competition by Germany after drawing one all and in the ongoing tournament he has won all his two matches in charge as Colombia coach and is only two games away from matching the tournament record held by the great Vittorio Pozzo, who masterminded Italy's world title wins on home soil in 1934 and in France in 1938.

- Colombia has already equalled their record of goals scored during a World Cup (Five, in 1962).

- Ivory Coast's three World Cup games against South American sides have all ended in defeats (Argentina in 2006, Brazil in 2010 and Colombia in 2014)

- MG