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

Terceira Ponte, Brasilia

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.

World Cup Group B Footballs

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.

Brazil vs Mexico

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.

ecuador fans

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.

manaus poster

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

By Hants