LeBron James says World Cup is bigger than NBA Finals
Basketball superstar LeBron James landed in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the World Cup final on Sunday, and he said the Maracana showdown is bigger than the NBA Finals. Fresh from announcing his decision to leave the Miami Heat and return to his first team the Cleveland Cavaliers, James touched down in Brazil to watch […]
How Germany Became the 2014 World Cup Champs
In June of 2000 Germany finished dead last in its group at the European Championship. They scored one goal in three games, losing to Portugal 3-0 in their final match. “At the turn of the millennium German football stared disaster in the face – it completely lacked a professional foundation,” the writers of a 2011 report from […]
Brasil reacts to Neymar’s injury
Fortaleza’s Avenida Beira Mar was alive with the sounds of Brazil’s celebrations after they took another step towards the 2014 Fifa World Cup final – but there was no mistaking the Neymar effect. The road that sweeps around the front of this picturesque north-eastern coastal location was populated with fans torn between the joy of quarter-final […]
Argentina-Brazil Rivalry Too Hot for Brotherhood
This World Cup has seen Latin American soccer fans cheering for each others’ teams. Not Argentines and Brazilians, whose rivalry remains stubbornly in place. Quarrels between fans of South America’s two biggest countries have broken out in stadiums as supporters taunt each other. Police intervened in Belo Horizonte where Argentina fans and host Brazil threw […]
Pickup Soccer in Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO — In Brazil, the ball is always moving. It moves on grass and on sand, on concrete and on cobblestone. Sometimes, during the rainy season, it even moves on water. Organized soccer, the kind the Brazilian national team will play next year in the World Cup, is known as futebol (pronounced FOO-chee-ball) […]
Japanese Brazilians celebrate mixed heritage
Nearly 1.5 million Japanese descendants live in Brazil, and two-thirds of those live in Sao Paulo state. Sao Paulo, Brazil – The room was a mixture of Brazilian green and yellow and Japanese red and white, as more than 200 members of the city’s large Japanese community turned out to watch the country of their […]
Black identity in Brazil
Before teams representing their countries from around the world arrived in Brazil, the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff, took the opportunity to label 2014 the “anti-racism World Cup.” The declaration came after a wave of racist incidents in soccer around the world targeting Black players, many of whom are Brazilian. While it’s a well-intentioned gesture and […]
Brasil: Samba and the Samba Schools
It all started in the end of the XIX Century in what was then known as Little Africa (Pequena Africa), the residence of the tias baianas. These were ladies who came from Bahia, and made a living selling food delicacies around town in their typical white dresses with big round skirts. They were also the […]
Boateng and Muntari sent home by Ghana
Ghana’s players departed the World Cup finals £1.7m richer after receiving the appearance money that they claimed they were owed, but with their reputations severely damaged following a series of controversial off-the-field events that overshadowed Thursday’s 2-1 defeat by Portugal. With Germany beating the USA in the other Group G fixture, a 2-1 victory would […]
Let The Games Begin
Top 5 Reasons to Watch the World. One of the worlds most highly-anticipated sports events kicks off today in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The games have been mired in controversy due to the high-profile protests against the billions of dollars being spent in the face of extreme poverty. Nonetheless, the FIFA 2014 World Cup is happening. The […]
