26 days in to the World Cup in Brazil. No football last night, indeed there is no football now until Wednesday evening. Plenty to talk about though.
Semi-final fixtures
8 July – Brazil v Germany, kick of at 9pm BST , live on BBC and to be played at the Estadio Mineirao, Belo Horizonte
9 July – Netherlands v Argentina, kick of at 9pm BST , live on ITV and to be played at the Arena de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo
Sad News
The Spanish Football Association have announced that the legendary Real Madrid player Alfredo Di Stefano died today, Monday 7 July, at the Gregorio Marañón hospital in Madrid.
Di Stefano turned 88 years old last Friday, and he was celebrating this birthday with his family on Saturday in an area near the Santiago Bernabeu. After lunch, he suffered a cardiac arrest. He was taken to the Hospital Gregorio Marañón in Madrid where he was admitted to the coronary care unit.
Alfredo Di Stefano once said:-
Football has given me everything. I’ve always seen it as a team game and I’ve always said that I don’t want to be idolised, I just want to play.
News
FIFA have released the following statement in relation to the Neymar injury in the Brazil/Columbia game:-
After an analysis of the matter and the extensive submission and documentation received from the CBF, the chairman came to the conclusion that the FIFA Disciplinary Committee cannot consider this matter in light of the conditions outlined in the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC) for the Disciplinary Committee to be able to intervene in such a situation.
In particular, in this specific case, no retrospective action can be taken by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, since the incident involving the Colombian player Juan Camilo Zuniga Mosquera did not escape the match officials’ attention, which is the first of two cumulative and necessary conditions for art. 77 a) of the FDC to be applied.
The Argentinian Football Federation announced the Real Madrid winger Di Maria will not be fit to feature in the semi-final game against Holland later this week after suffering a thigh injury in the 1-0 quarter-final victory over Belgium.
Germany coach Joachim Low speaking to the German Football Association (DFB) ahead of his semi-final against the hosts Brazil:-
We’ve been in at least the semi-finals of the last four World Cups and that just shows that we’ve been playing consistently at the very highest level.
This is a highlight now; it’s something special and amazing. I’m looking forward to it so much, and everybody in the squad is too. I think all Germans are also, and one thing’s for sure – we desperately want to play in the Maracana in Rio again. On 13 July. We’re not done yet.
While FIFA are saying they now know who will be refereeing the final 4 games, they’ve not released any names other than the match day officials for the Brazil/Germany game, see here http://www.exeweb.com/2014/07/07/brazil-2014-referee-appointment-for-brazil-v-germany/
In announcing the officals FIFA’s Head of Refereeing Massimo Busacca took the opportunity to thank the entire referee team.
As the tournament draws to a close, I would like to say thank you to all of the match officials – the 25 trios and the eight support duos – for their contributions. Considering what is at stake in each and every World Cup match, with the eyes of millions watching on, I want to praise the entire team for the way they’ve conducted themselves and gone about their work as professionals.
Overall I’m pleased with the performances and the effort put in. We have also been looking out for key learnings as part of the debriefs and thorough analysis of the trainings and matches.
They have however named the pool of 15 referee teams that have been retained in Brazil. They are:-
Asia | ||
Referee | IRMATOV, Ravshan | Uzbekistan |
Assistant 1 | RASULOV, Abdukhamidullo | Uzbekistan |
Assistant 2 | KOCHKAROV, Bakhadyr | Kyrgyzstan |
Referee | NISHIMURA, Yuichi | Japan |
Assistant 1 | SAGARA, Toru | Japan |
Assistant 2 | NAGI, Toshiyuki | Japan |
Africa | ||
Referee | DOUE, Noumandiez Desire | Côte d’Ivoire |
Assistant 1 | YEO, Songuifolo | Côte d’Ivoire |
Assistant 2 | BIRUMUSHAHU, Jean Claude | Burundi |
Referee | HAIMOUDI, Djamel | Algeria |
Assistant 1 | ACHIK, Redouane | Morocco |
Assistant 2 | ETCHIALI, Abdelhak | Algeria |
North, Central America & the Caribbean | ||
Referee | GEIGER, Mark W | USA |
Assistant 1 | HURD, Mark Sean | USA |
Assistant 2 | FLETCHER, Joe | Canada |
Referee | RODRIGUEZ MORENO, Marco Antonio | Mexico |
Assistant 1 | TORRENTERA RIVERA, Marvin Cesar | Mexico |
Assistant 2 | QUINTERO HUITRON, Marcos | Mexico |
South America | ||
Referee | OSSES ZENCOVICH, Enrique Roberto | Chile |
Assistant 1 | ASTROZA CARDENAS, Carlos Alexis | Chile |
Assistant 2 | ROMAN RETAMAL, Sergio Mauricio | Chile |
Referee | RICCI, Sandro Meira | Brazil |
Assistant 1 | DE CARVALHO, Emerson Augusto | Brazil |
Assistant 2 | VAN GASSE, Marcelo | Brazil |
Referee | VERA RODRIGUEZ, Carlos Alfredo | Ecuador |
Assistant 1 | LESCANO GUERRERO, Christian Daniel | Ecuador |
Assistant 2 | ROMERO IBARRA, Byron Norberto | Ecuador |
Europe | ||
Referee | CAKIR, Cüneyt | Turkey |
Assistant 1 | DURAN, Bahattin | Turkey |
Assistant 2 | ONGUN, Tarik | Turkey |
Referee | ERIKSSON, Jonas | Sweden |
Assistant 1 | KLASENIUS, Mathias | Sweden |
Assistant 2 | WAERNMARK, Daniel | Sweden |
Referee | PROENCA OLIVEIRA ALVES GARCIA, Pedro | Portugal |
Assistant 1 | CUNHA MIRANDA, Bertino | Portugal |
Assistant 2 | GARCIAS BOLINHAS TRIGO, José Tiago | Portugal |
Referee | RIZZOLI, Nicola | Italy |
Assistant 1 | FAVERANI, Renato | Italy |
Assistant 2 | STEFANI, Andrea | Italy |
Referee | VELASCO CARBALLO, Carlos | Spain |
Assistant 1 | ALONSO FERNANDEZ, Roberto | Spain |
Assistant 2 | YUSTE JIMENEZ, Juan Carlos | Spain |
Referee | WEBB, Howard Melton | England |
Assistant 1 | MULLARKEY, Michael | England |
Assistant 2 | CANN, Darren | England |