SÃO PAULO — Brazil hosted its first-ever Refugee World Cup this week, with Nigeria taking a convincing win over Cameroon in the final.
Watch the video for interviews with refugee organisers and participants, and with the United Nations’ Luiz Fernando Godinho on Brazil’s nearly 7,000 refugees. (Click on caption button for English subtitles.)
RIO DE JANEIRO – Well, that was that. Brazilians had been hungry to host another World Cup final in Rio’s historic Maracanã stadium since 1950, and although in the end things didn’t go to plan on the pitch, many have praised the country’s enthusiasm, hospitality and what turned out to be a dramatic and unforgettable World Cup.
Anadolu Agency – additional reporting by Lucy Jordan in Brasília
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s 2014 World Cup campaign came to a bitterly disappointing end on Saturday as the Netherlands put three goals past the home team to win a playoff for third place – giving the hosts a second consecutive defeat and leaving them fourth overall in the competition.
Hopes had not been high as the historic five-time champions went head-to-head with a skilful Dutch side, which have never won a World Cup.
The 3-0 defeat to the Dutch at the Mané Garrincha stadium in the Brazilian capital, Brasília, was not on the scale of their worst-ever 7-1 semifinal loss against Germany, but after all the excitement of hosting the tournament for the first time in 64 years, Saturday’s result means that this is be a World Cup that Brazilians will want to consign to the history books.
Anadolu Agency
SÃO PAULO – Brazil reacted with a mixture of disappointment, disgust and shame on Tuesday night after suffering their worst-ever defeat in the nation’s long World Cup history at the hands of Germany, who thrashed the hosts 7-1 in the semifinal clash.
Anadolu Agency
SAO PAULO (AA) – Brazil’s World Cup “golden boy” and rising star, Neymar, has again been ruled out of Tuesday’s crunch semifinal World Cup clash against Germany and the rest of the tournament, local media quoted his medical team as saying on Monday.
Hopes were raised after Neymar announced that he still wanted to play in a potential final match in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã stadium Sunday.
But doctors say his third vertebra – fractured when Colombia’s Juan Camilo Zúñiga kneed the Brazilian forward in the back during Friday’s quarterfinal game – needs at least six weeks’ rest.
Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari has been putting three members of the national team to the test – Willian, Paulinho and Bernard – all vying for Neymar’s spot, local media reported on Monday from the team’s training ground north of Rio de Janeiro.
Anadolu Agency
SÃO PAULO – An estimated 70,000 Argentina fans indunated the centre of São Paulo on Tuesday to see their country beat Switzerland and secure their place in the quarterfinals.
Anadolu Agency – by Steffen Stubager & Asger Mow, additional reporting and editing by Ben Tavener
RIO DE JANEIRO – Hundreds of football fans in Brazil for the World Cup are refusing to pay sky-high accommodation prices and instead are opting to sleep rough during the key sporting event.
In Rio de Janeiro, football fans from all over the world can be seen sleeping in the main bus station and on the city’s famous beaches, where temperatures have tumbled to 15°C at night and rain has been a regular feature.
Fans, including many from Argentina, Colombia and Chile, have come to Brazil for weeks in some cases without booking any accommodation and, for most, the risk is directly linked to hotels inflating prices during the World Cup.
Anadolu Agency
SÃO PAULO – Exactly who brought football to Brazil and precisely when they did it is still a moot point.
Some say it was Charles Miller, the son of a British railway worker who was building train lines in São Paulo, and others point to Thomas Donohue, a dye worker from Busby in Scotland, who sowed the soccer seed in Rio de Janeiro – both sometime around the late 1890s.
However the sport made the 9,000km leap from Britain, some 120 years later Brazil has earned the title of O País do Futebol – the Land of Football – and deservedly so.
Ben Tavener 