World Cup 2014

After a long and hard-work 32 teams made their way to Brazil for the biggest football event of this year. As the countdown continues, excitement culminates. The kick-off will take place with the “Brazil – Croatia” match at Sao Paulo on Thursday 12th, June at 17:00 (CET).

In this twentieth occasion of the World Cup series, Brazil has 12 stadiums in as many Host Cities. Although teams might have rightful concerns about travel fatigue, in a country that is in love with football and plenty to offer in terms of tourism this might turn into a joy for the supporters who are widely spread around. 

When it comes to the football, Spain will arrive as an invincible armada due to its last three consecutive titles of 2008, 2012 European Champion and 2010 World Champion. Therefore, Del Bosque will definitely try to keep the trophy with his proud but declining team. 

On the other hand, Brazil has already sat on top of the bet sites with 3/1 odds. As Brazil hosts the World Cup it will definitely take the benefit of its supporters and its legendary background. Their records are impressive as participating all of 19 previous competitions and achieving to collect 5 trophies. Even only these two statistics make them unique but will it be sufficient? We will see. 

The other 30 teams have all their pros and cons, and they have their words to say on the field. If you also have yours I added some files at the end of this article. You will find groups, venues, match calendar with days and hours at the “Match Schedule”. There are also “Rules of Game” and “List of Players” as official documents. You can click the official web pages of FIFA and UEFA for more information and further details.[1]

Finally, I have prepared three more files for making things more fun. In the first file, which is called “Group Stage Matches”, you will find a fill-in form for all the group stage games for the possible or realized scores. Second file, which is “Road to the Cup”, is a map for further challenges after group stages. Third and the last one is “My FORECASTS”. This is a final product of comprehensive analysis which is including but not limited to qualifying round and league performance of teams, squads’ talents, historical data and current motivation.

Enjoy the Cup!

Ergun UNUTMAZ, 30/05/2014

Official Documents:                      My Contributions:
Match Schedule                             Group Stage Matches
Rules of the Game                         Road to the Cup
List of Players                                 My FORECASTS (Will be avaialable as of the kick-off whistle)