Day 24 of the World Cup in Brazil. No surprises last night as both the favourites went through, in Germany and the hosts Brazil.The big news though is that Brazil’s Neymar is out for the rest of the tournament.

Results for July 4
France                                        0-1         Germany
Hummels 12′
Ref: Néstor Pitana
Att: 74,240

Brazil                                             2-1         Colombia
Thiago Silva 7′ David Luiz 68′                 Rodríguez 80′ (pen)
Ref: Carlos Velasco Carballo
Att: 60,342

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Fixtures and officials for July 5

Argentina v Belgium . Kick off at  5pm BST, live on ITV  at the Estadio Nacional, Brasilia.

Referee: Nicola RIZZOLI (Italy)
Assistant Referees: Renato FAVERANI (ITA) and Andrea STEFANI (ITA)
Fourth official: Benjamin WILLIAMS (AUS)

Netherlands v Costa Rica. Kick off at 9pm BST, live on BBC 1 at the Arena Fonte Nova, Salvador

Referee: Ravshan IRMATOV (Uzbekistan)
Assistant Referees: Abduxamidullo RASULOV (UZB) and Bakhadyr KOCHKAROV (KGZ)
Fourth official: Noumandiez DOUE (CIV)

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Dirty matches

Yesterday’s game between Brazil and Columbia had the most fouls at this World Cup. The second worse also featured Brazil.

Match Yellow Card 2nd yellow card and red card Red Cards Fouls Committed
BRA v COL 4 0 0 54
BRA v CHI 7 0 0 51
ARG v SUI 5 0 0 47
AUS v NED 2 0 0 43
JPN v GRE 3 1 0 41

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News on Neymar

Brazil may have won their 2-1 quarter-final game over Colombia yesterday (Friday), with Neymar suffering a fractured vertebra that means he’ll miss the rest of the tournament.

After being stretchered off Neymar was taken to the city’s Sao Carlos Hospital, where it was confirmed that his third vertebra had been broken.

Brazilian Football Association (CBF) doctor Rodrigo Lasmar announced:-

Neymar had a scan, which confirmed he had fractured his third vertebra. In terms of the recovery process, it’s a fracture that heals quickly, but unfortunately he’ll be in no condition to play next week.”

It’s not serious in the sense that it requires surgery, but he’s in pain and he’ll need to immobilise it to recover. He’ll have to have it immobilised with a belt for a few weeks to be able to get back to full mobility.

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France v Germany Quotes

Joachim Low, Germany coach
I think both teams played well defensively today. There weren’t many goalscoring opportunities, which was part of our plan. We didn’t want to give France chances with the quality of strikers they possess. We closed them down well – and that was the key. They did the same against us, because Yohan Cabaye and Paul Pogba are a great screen for the defence and we knew that we had to go wide in order to create chances, which is why I switched Philipp Lahm to the full-back position. France gave everything to try to force the equaliser, but Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng were excellent and Manuel Neuer did well when called upon. In the last four World Cups we’ve reached the semi-finals. That is a good achievement. We now need to take the next step.

Didier Deschamps, France coach
Although our adventure in Brazil ends here and we’re sad, disappointed and frustrated, we’ll move on. I hope this group of players can play together for a long time. I have a lot of work to do with them, but things are definitely promising. We’ll need to maintain this momentum and quality. Although I’m hurt and disappointed at the moment, I have to remember that there are a lot of positives. Today, there wasn’t much between the two sides. Compared to Germany we were much more inexperienced team and they are more used to playing big international matches like this. I thought we were a little bit timid at first and they scored early. After that, we showed promise. We created chances and could have been more clinical, but Manuel Neuer had a good game. That said they could have easily scored a second when we were pushing forward at the end.

Mats Hummels, Germany defender and Man of the Match
As for the goal, the ball from Toni Kroos was good and I was in the right place at the right time! We’re playing the type of football that will give us the chance to win. We’re defending well, with passion and that needs to be intensified with every coming match. France are a top team and today was tough – it certainly wasn’t a walk on the park. That said, I think we deserved to win.

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Brazil v Columbia Quotes

Luiz Felipe Scolari, Brazil coach
We didn’t have a problem with tiredness after the Chile game and the team made a full recovery, as you could see in the first half. If we’d have got the second goal then, it would have settled our nerves a bit more. The goal we conceded came about because we gave away possession and were caught off balance. They really committed men forward, with three strikers and James dropping into space. Our front men had to do a lot more running too, but we got there in the end. We’ve still got two steps to go but we’ve got the ability to get there.

David Luiz, Man of the Match (BRA)
I’d like to congratulate both teams on what was a great game. Colombia have had a great World Cup and have played some really good football. Today we really went for it, though, and played the kind of football everyone likes watching, with a lot of intensity and going for goal the whole time. As for my free-kick, I’ve been waiting all year for one like that, with Chelsea too, and Willian came up and had a joke with me about it. I’m delighted it came in this game. I hit the ball well and it was lovely to watch it going in, moving like that, which made it very hard for the keeper.

Jose Pekerman, Colombia coach
We knew that Brazil would have learned something from the Chile game and that they’d play better. We went into this game without conceding in our last match and then we went and let one in straightaway. It allowed the Brazilians to relax a little and put a bit of pressure on us, causing us to stop playing the kind of football we’ve been producing up to now. Maybe we were too keen to get the equaliser and we lost our balance as a result. We improved in the second half, though, and moved the ball around faster. Our players started to worry Brazil, and a lot of the time they just cleared the ball as fast they could. In the end, we began to make our intensity count and we started to create more chances. Their second caught us off guard but we kept on fighting and came very close.

By Hants