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The second semi-final at Brazil 2014 features another tussle for supremacy between Europe and South America, with the Netherlands and Argentina renewing acquaintances in Sao Paulo. The two teams most famously contested the Final in 1978, when Argentina won 3-1 after extra time to record their only success in four FIFA World Cupâ„¢ meetings with the Oranje.

Their hopes of posting a second could well depend on Lionel Messi, who has driven the team forward in Brazil and regularly made the difference, with a haul of four goals and one assist so far. Performing a different role than he does for Barcelona, Messi pulls the strings for La Albiceleste thanks to his exceptional ball protection, devastating bursts of speed and precision passing.

He will have to make do without injured lieutenant Angel Di Maria, but the player whose absence will arguably be felt most is Nigel de Jong….

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John Doyle says “this wasn’t about a Brazilian collapse”¦ It was all about German engineering”. Read it all.

…as the table shows, the European leagues are still dominating the tournament.

The world’s best players come from around the world. Yet the money is in Europe, which means that most of them spend their professional peaks in England, Germany, Italy or Spain.

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Congratulations to both teams.

James Rodriguez wow; just wow.

Penalty shoot outs are so tough.

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Along with the Jaw III headline, former English referee Graham Poll, who is widely regarded as one of the best modern referees, argued that Suarez, “should not be allowed to kick another ball in this World Cup tournament”.

“Referee Marco Rodriguez clearly missed the coming together of Suarez and Italian Giorgio Chiellini,” Poll said. “And replays are clear enough to me for the Uruguayan to be charged by FIFA’s disciplinary panel.”

Adding to the discontent of the English press at the despicable behaviour of Suarez, Everton boss Roberto Martinez chimed into the conversation on ESPN and questioned whether the 2013-14 EPL player of the season is in the right state of mind to be playing football given his brain explosions of late.

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Nigeria and Iran could see their World Cup fate decided by the drawing of lots.

Argentina play Nigeria and Iran face Bosnia-Herzegovina in Group F’s final matches on Wednesday, and if Iran and Argentina were both to win their games 1-0 then the FIFA Organising Committee would need to draw lots to determine whether the Super Eagles or Team Melli would advance.

Iran and Nigeria drew 0-0 in their opening match, with Iran then losing 1-0 to Argentina and Nigeria beating Bosnia & Herzegovina 1-0 in their second games.

FIFA rules determine that teams should be separated first by points, then goal difference, then goals scored and then their head-to-head record. However, lots are used as a last recourse if they cannot otherwise be set apart.

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Take a look and yes, you read that right, it says “coin toss” for some of them.

Go Team USA go!

Beaten 4-0 by Germany on their Group G debut and deprived of the services of some of their first-choice players through injury and suspension, Portugal have made an inauspicious start to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™. Nevertheless, a look at the history books shows that they need not despair. After slow starts at UEFA EURO 2004 and 2012, A Selecção das Quinas went far on both occasions.

Sunday’s meeting with USA is a crucial one for Paulo Bento’s men, and victory would certainly give them a timely lift, especially with Fabio Coentrao having gone back to Lisbon, with his World Cup having come to a premature, injury-enforced end, and Pepe serving a one-match suspension. To make matters worse, Rui Patricio and Hugo Almeida have both picked up knocks that will keep them sidelined until after the group phase, while Bruno Alves is also an injury doubt. All five started against the Germans and their absences ”“ temporary or otherwise ”“ have given coach Bento plenty to ponder as he assesses his options for the USA game.

The Portuguese need not feel too downcast, however, not when they have shown an ability to recover from similar situations in the past.

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England’s footall players have apologised for being eliminated from the World Cup, saying they were “gutted” not to have performed better.

Wayne Rooney and Joe Hart were among members of the squad to publicly lament their exit from the tournament on Friday night.

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They not only lose they find a way to break your heart while doing it.

In fairness, the offense had moments of light, but the defense just wasn’t good enough–KSH.

The (England-Italy) outcome deserves to be regarded as a disappointment because there was a 50 per cent chance of victory. Italy had a 23
per cent chance, similar to the probability of Holland beating Spain. England’s good fortune was the unlikely result of Costa Rica beating Uruguay, an outcome that only had a 15 per cent chance.

Before the Italy game, England had a 77.7 per cent chance of proceeding. This has been cut almost in half, to 39.6 per cent. Much of this chance has leaked not to Uruguay (who are only on 25 per cent to go through) but to Costa Rica, who are 58.1 per cent likely.

This reduction has also taken England’s chances of winning the World Cup down to 1.2 per cent.

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So sad to see Jozy Altidore carried off after an injury.

Halftime: Ghana Dominates, But U.S.A. Has the Edge.

Wow.

Still sitting here in eerie silence. Robin Van Persie’s first goal changed that game.

For the World Cup I said my one hope was that the referees would not unduly impact the outcome so far two games two fiascoes.

Blast it.

Márcio is eager to be part of a football team, the sport that his paternal grandmother keeps him from practicing. “My grandmother does not let me play, and then I’m indoors. I do not like being alone at home,” he says, dejected.

Now, thanks to World Vision, he will spend his afternoons doing different activities that will help his social and physical development. “I’m not alone anymore in the house,” Márcio says, celebrating. He strongly believes that he will learn many things in the new community and adds, “I believe in that with faith in God.”

Though he goes to school, Márcio can’t read or write, but he doesn’t hide his desire to learn and has revealed that his teacher only teaches those students who learn fast. Those with learning difficulties, like him, are left behind.

His cousin, Manuela, 26, believes that Márcio’s learning difficulties may be the result of problems during his mother’s pregnancy. “She used a lot of drugs, I believe that it had serious effects on his learning [abilities],” she says. But Manuela emphasizes that he will be a great man, because he has a big desire to be someone in life.

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Ugh.

Days before the opening of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Facebook and Twitter have launched tournament coverage areas. Both social networks figure to have a big presence in the way people watch and follow the action and they are understandably trying to capitalize on that with some custom features.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network, has launched a page that aggregates popular public posts about the World Cup and features a match tracker. Also unveiled was a fan map, which shows a geographic breakdown of the fans of 10 prominent player Facebook pages. For example, it shows that Cristiano Ronaldo, the world’s most followed player on Facebook, has 84 million fans. What might surprise is that by Facebook’s data, he’s huge in Sri Lanka, where his popularity is 20.5% “above average.”

Twitter is using the World Cup as a chance to sign up new users, enticing people to join by giving new accounts the opportunity to declare allegiance to a country and select a pre-made image as a new avatar. Twitter has also created a custom World Cup hub for the tournament and for individual matches. You can also now tweet to include a country’s flag, a feature called “hashflags” that was in use during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Pop star Shakira showed the feature off in what appears to be a coordinated launch for the product. Twitter will use these mentions in its “World Cup of Tweets,” which will go live on Thursday.

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Would like fine games where the referees don’t impact the outcome.

When the hosts of the 2014 World Cup take on Croatia in the opening match of the tournament on June 12th, God will also be on the pitch. And whoever opens the score sheet for Brazil, it’s likely that Jesus will get the credit.

Everyone knows that football is a religion in Brazil, but religion itself finds its expression in the game, and the players’ behaviours on and off the pitch reveal much about the country’s changing religious landscape.

You will still see players making Catholic gestures such as the sign of the cross, but recent years have seen more evangelical expressions of Christianity. After their victory in the 2002 World Cup final, the whole team knelt in a huge prayer circle, with some players stripping off their shirts to show t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “I belong to Jesus.”

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ESPN Films, creators of the critically-acclaimed 30 for 30 film series, will premiere a new series in April surrounding the 2014 FIFA World Cup on ESPN. 30 for 30: Soccer Stories will include a mix of standalone feature-length and 30-minute-long documentary films from an award winning group of filmmakers telling compelling narratives from around the international soccer landscape.

“With ESPN being the home of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, we know that sports fans will be looking forward to high quality content focused on what is perhaps the world’s most revered sport,” said Connor Schell, VP of ESPN Films and Original Content. “We feel this is the perfect time to expand upon the success of our 30 for 30 series by focusing this collection on some of the incredible stories of soccer’s legendary past.”

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Ed: Some are estimating that in the next couple of decades, they’ll be more evangelicals in Brazil than in the United States. It’s already the second largest mission-sending country in the world by some measurements. Honduras may be as much as half evangelical Christians now. With all these shifts of numbers of believers, what will that do in terms of global leadership? We’ve already seen the Anglican Global South assert its authority as the majority. How will this shift play out in the coming years?

Dr. Jenkins: So much of this change has happened very recently ”“ within 30, 40, 50 years, which in the span of Christian history is not great. It’s hardly surprising that some institutions have not adapted fully to take account of that. Other churches, however, recognize it. On a typical Sunday, there are more Assemblies of God worshippers in the greater San Paulo, Brazil area than in the United States. It’s a radical change.

Let me suggest to you that in 30 years, there will be two sorts of church in the world. There’ll be the ones that are multi-ethnic, transnational, and multi-continental. They are constantly battling over issues of culture, lifestyle, worship, and constantly in conflict, debate and controversy. And those are the good ones. The other churches will have decided to let all these trends pass them by. They’ll live just like they’ve always done with an average age in their congregations of 80. Personally, I’d much rather be in one of the ones that is recognizing, taking account of the expansion with all the debates and controversies.

Read it all (and please note this is part three of a series and the links for the first two parts are provided in the top section introducing this interview).