World Cup 2014 in Brazil: Huge Brazilian debacle, golden Germany, shocking results in the preliminary groups

The 20th World Cup took place in Brazil and the tournament offered a lot. The gold medals went to the Germans, who had already defeated the Brazilians 7:1 in the semi-finals, and this World Championship had to do without the Czech national team. So what did the 2014 World Championship in Brazil offer?

Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Sao Paulo, Fortaleza, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Salvador, Recife, Cuiabá, Manaus, Natal and Curitiba – exactly these twelve cities were involved in hosting the 2014 World Cup.

Unfortunately, this tournament also had to do without the Czech national team. In any case, you can find out more about the Czech national team’s performance in the qualifiers in our special below.

Qualifiers

As far as the specific qualifiers are concerned, Bosnia and Herzegovina made its first ever appearance at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Colombia returned to the championship after 16 years, while the Belgians and Russians also took part in the World Championship after a 12-year absence.

On the other hand, after 32 years, none of the Nordic countries participated in the World Championships. For the first time since 1994, Paraguay was also absent from the tournament.

It should be added that a total of 204 teams took part in the qualifying round, while 32 teams took part in the final tournament as usual.

EUROPE – Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, England, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Portugal, France.

AMERICA – Brazil, USA, Costa Rica, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, Uruguay

AFRICA – Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Ghana, Algeria.

ASIA – Japan, Iran, South Korea

OCEANIA – Australia

GoalControl

At the World Cup in Brazil, FIFA tried out a new innovation called GoalControl, which is a system for evaluating the accuracy of goals. This system is equipped with 14 speed cameras, 7 of which are aimed at each goal.

We also covered this technology in our World Cup special in Brazil, attached above.

Group stage

As with almost every World Cup in history, the group stages at the World Cup in Brazil produced some big surprises. Both in terms of qualifiers and outcasts. Croatia ended its participation in the tournament after the group stage.

In Group A, it lost to Brazil and Mexico. Group B also came as a big shock, with Spain, the reigning king of world football, failing to qualify. The Netherlands, on the other hand, dominated this group with nine points.

Group D also saw the end of the favourites. Costa Rica was promoted from the first place with 7 points, Uruguay got one point less. England finished third, with only one point in the group, while Italy finished last.

Group G was also a surprise, with Germany winning. The second place went to the United States, while Portugal was the third non-placed team, although they scored the same number of points (4) as the second placed USA.

The following teams advanced to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Costa Rica, Uruguay, France, Switzerland, Argentina, Nigeria, Germany, USA, and Belgium.

Elimination phase

The eighth round of this tournament offered very evenly matched battles. Brazil knocked out Chile after a penalty shootout, and fans also witnessed penalty kicks in the match between Costa Rica and Greece. It was not until the 91st minute that defender Sokratis equalised at 1:1, but the Costa Ricans successfully managed the penalties and advanced to the quarter-finals.

After regulation time, only Colombia, the Netherlands and France managed to advance. Colombia beat Uruguay 2-0 thanks to two goals from James Rodríguez, while Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored in the 94th minute to give the Netherlands a 2-1 victory over Mexico.

France knocked out Nigeria 2-0, but Paul Pogba scored the first goal in the 79th minute. Three matches went into extra time. Germany vs. Algeria (2:1), Argentina vs. Switzerland (1:0) and Belgium vs. USA (2:1).

The quarter-finals were also tough and hard fought. The match between France and Germany was decided by a single goal, namely Mats Hummels’ 13th minute goal. Brazil made it through their quarter-final match against Colombia (2: 1). Argentina’s duel with Belgium was also decided by a single goal, scored by Gonzalo Higuaín in the eighth minute. In the quarter-finals, the fans were treated to a penalty shoot-out between the Netherlands and Costa Rica.

Neither regulation time nor extra time decided the fate of this match. However, the Netherlands managed the penalty kicks better.

A shock in the semi-finals!

One of the biggest debacles in the history of the World Cup – that’s probably a safe way to interpret the match between Germany and Brazil. The former led 5:0 after half an hour, but the match ended 7:1.

Not only about this match, but also about the course and details of the whole tournament in our above attached special. In the second semi-final, the Dutch took the game to penalties again, but this time they failed to do so and lost to the Argentines.

Brazil did not even make it to the bronze medal match and did not win a single medal at this championship, even though it was a home tournament. The Netherlands won clearly 3: 0, and after seventeen minutes it was already 2: 0 with goals from Robin van Persie and Daley Blind.

The 2014 World Cup final, in which Germany and Argentina faced off, offered an evenly matched battle. However, it was an unsuccessful final for the team around Lionel Messi. It was not decided in normal time, but Mario Götze scored in the 113th minute to decide Germany’s victory.

Speaking of numbers…

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil saw a truly great attendance, with 3,429,873 spectators in the stadiums for the entire championship. On average, this amounts to 53,592 fans per match. A total of 64 matches were played in which teams scored 171 goals (2.67 goals per match).

The top scorer was James Rodríguez of Colombia, who scored six times. The biggest stars of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil were Lionel Messi, Thomas Muller, Arjen Robben and Mats Hummels.

Even though the home team did not win any of the medals and many famous national teams were eliminated after the preliminary groups, it was another successful championship, which was certainly enjoyed by everyone involved, including the fans.

FIFA, ESPN