Fifa World Cup 2018 Brazil vs Mexico: Samba boys train ahead of knockouts

Brazil's journey to the Round of 16 has been anything but smooth

World Cup favourites Brazil continue their campaign for the 2018 World Cup in Russiaon Monday against a Mexican side, which stated their campaign brilliantly before coming dangerously close to elimination.

Brazil produced their best display of the tournament in beating Serbia 2-0 to secure their place in the last 16, finding more connection between midfield and attack than in previous games, reports Xinhua news agency.

Brazil struggled for fluidity in their opening two matches in Russia and will look to the win over Serbia as a turning point to their campaign and a confidence boost.

ALSO READ: Here are the top scorers of Fifa World Cup 2018 for Golden Boot standings

However, they will have to be wary of their disciplinary record with key trio Neymar, Coutinho and Casemiro a booking away from suspension.

Brazil's journey to the Round of 16 has been anything but smooth: After drawing 1-1 with Switzerland in their opener and leaving it late to claim a 2-0 win over Costa Rica, they beat Serbia 2-0 to ultimately move on as expected group winners.

Read More On : Fifa World Cup 2018 knockouts

 

FIFA World Cup 2018: Why prosperous nations are more likely to play and win

The more a country and its society give liberty to its people to make choices for their lives, the more likely it is to be a World Cup winner

More than a seventh of humanity watched the 2014 final, where Germany became the champions with a lone goal in the extra time. Unarguably, this makes the 2018 World Cup the most to-be-watched sport tournament, and a question that becomes central to discussion in the office, over tea or lunch, and at parties, is this: Who will win this time?

ALSO READ: Here's how to watch Fifa World Cup 2018 for free in mobile devices

Juxtaposing the general development and economic progress of a country with its perceived chances of winning reveals that the probable semi-finalist teams would be the countries with better social and economic indicators. The world’s top betting players such as Ladbrokes, WilliamHill and 888sport have almost unanimously put Germany, Brazil, France, Spain and Argentina as top five, while Tunisia, Iran, Panama, South Korea and Saudi Arabia as the bottom five.

ALSO READ: An exhaustive guide to FIFA World Cup 2018: Everything you need to know

Income, represented by gross national income per capita; health, represented by life expectancy at birth; and freedom to make one’s choices, represented by an index published in the World Happiness Report are the development indicators used. Though the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the highest per capita income among the 10, the top-five probables have better incomes (see Chart 1) than the least popular teams. It also turns out that the healthier the country, the better is its chance of winning (see Chart 2).

ALSO READ: FIFA World Cup 2018: Snappy facts about every team in the tournament

The more a country and its society give liberty to its people to make choices for their lives, the more likely it is to be a World Cup winner. It must be noted that all these are correlations and not causal relations.

ALSO READ: World Cup 2018: Watch out for these in-form teams eyeing glory in Russia

Interestingly, only two of the 32 teams that are playing the finals are low human development countries, while a majority, 18, are highly developed (see Chart 4). The top-five probable winners are richer and developed than the average of the tournament’s 32 nations, which, in turn, are more prosperous than the global average.

Read More On → FIFA World Cup 2018

 

Here's how to watch Fifa World Cup 2018 for free in mobile devices

Both Airtel and Jio would broadcast the FIFA World Cup 2018 matches for free to their respective subscribers

Fifa World Cup 2018 is about to begin in a few hours from now in Russia, where 32 teams from across the globe would play around 50 matches in a span of one month. The much-awaited football event would attract fans from across countries to watch the action live, either from the stadium or from home. However, it would be a dream come true if the matches could be watched live even on the go.

For Indian fans, that dream has just come true, as telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have announced free broadcast of 2018 Fifa World Cup matches on their respective mobile television apps.

Here is how to catch the live action on mobile devices

Airtel TV

Bharti Airtel has rolled out an updated Airtel TV app, which would enable users to watch live broadcasts of the upcoming football tournament. Interestingly, the matches will be broadcast in various regional languages in addition to Hindi and English.

Airtel TV users will also have access to match schedules and other updates related to the game, such as exclusive behind-the-scenes match snippets along with match previews or reviews.

The updated app will be available on both the Android and iOS platforms over coming days.

“At Airtel TV, we are driven by the constant desire to offer best content experience to our customers with high relevance value. While T20 cricket tournament received great feedback from our users, we are confident of recreating the same magic with the upcoming football extravaganza as well. We are delighted that the Airtel TV app is fast becoming the go to destination for sports lovers in India,” said Sameer Batra, CEO-Content and Apps, Bharti Airtel.

Reliance JioTV

Reliance Jio also announced that the company would broadcast live Fifa 2018 matches on its mobile television app, JioTV.

Read More On → FIFA World Cup 2018

Fifa World Cup 2018: Goldman's AI forecast predicts sixth win for Brazil

Unsurprisingly, Brazil and Germany are the teams appearing most often in World up 2018 forecast models produced by economists

So much for the unpredictable nature of the beautiful game. Goldman Sachs Group Inc reckons Brazil will win its sixth World Cup, basing its forecast on data mining, machine learning and econometrics.

The investment bank is the latest to jump into the excitement before the soccer championship kicks off this week. It used 200,000 statistical models, sifted data on individual players and recent team performance and ran 1 million simulations of the tournament.

As a result, it predicts that Brazil will lift the trophy on July 15. We should note that Goldman also tipped Brazil in 2014 (forecasting a 3-1 win over Argentina in the final). But Brazil stumbled in the semi-final back then, losing by a whopping 7-1 to eventual champions Germany.

ALSO READ: In pics: Here's how Indians are gearing up for Fifa World Cup 2018

Here’s the Goldman explanation in more detail:

“We feed data on team characteristics, individual players and recent team performance into four different types of machine learning models to analyze the number of goals scored in each match. The models then learn the relationship between these characteristics and goals scored, using the scores of competitive World Cup and European Cup matches since 2005. By cycling through alternative combinations of variables, we get a sense of which characteristics matter for success and which stay on the bench. We then use the model to predict the number of goals scored in each possible encounter of the tournament and use the unrounded score to determine the winner.”

- Goldman Sachs, June 2018.

Unsurprisingly, Brazil and Germany are the teams appearing most often in forecast models produced by economists. Danske Bank also picked Brazil in its preview, which would give the South American team a record six titles, while Commerzbank sees Germany lifting its fifth.

Read More On → FIFA World Cup 2018

 

Will Sunil Chhetri surpass Villa's 59 goal record in his 100th match today?

After the match on Saturday he made an impassioned plea to all fans of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo, "abuse us, criticize us but please come to watch the Indian national team"

Sunil Chhetri, one of the greatest footballers the country has produced, will play his 100th international match today when India will take on Kenya in Intercontinental Cup at Mumbai Football Arena. Earlier, in his 99th match, he scored a hat-trick to seal the game for India against Chinese Taipei and equalled David Villa's record of 59 goals. After the match on Saturday, he made an impassioned plea to all fans of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo: “Abuse us, criticize us but please come to watch the Indian national team.” India cricket captain Virat Kohli was the first to support Chettri, urging sports lovers to come forward and watch the national football side play, in an instagram post.

With less than two weeks left for Fifa World Cup 2018 to begin and broadcasters urging fans of the 'beautiful game' to profess their love for their 'doosri country' via hashtags and advertisements, the nation's all-time highest goal-getter demanded some love and affection for their 'first country'.

What Sunil Chettri said in the twitter post

"To all of you who are fans of big European clubs and support European clubs with so much passion and sometimes you guys think that the level is not the same, so why do you waste your time? Agreed, the level is not the same, not even close but with our desire and determination, we will try our best to make your time worth," Chhetri's plea was not only about accepting where they stand but also what little they want from the fans. "To all of you, who have lost hope or don't have any hope in Indian football, we request you to come and watch us in the stadium," the skipper said. Chhetri also requested the critics of Indian football -- please abuse but make the 'Blue Tigers' feel relevant. "I mean it's not fun to criticise and abuse othe n internet. Come to the stadium, do it on our face, scream at us, shout at us, abuse us, who knows one day we might change you guys, you might start cheering for us. You guys have no idea how important you guys are and how important your support is," the skipper appealed.

"I request you all to please come ...Talk about the game, go back home, have discussions, make banners. Please get involved, this is an important time and juncture in Indian football and football in India needs you guys", Sunil Chettri further added.

What Sachin Tendulkar said in the twitter post

In a video posted on his official Twitter account, Tendulkar encouraged fans to support athletes, regardless of which sport they play, and said that it was really important that sports lovers stand behind them.

→ 2018 FIFA World Cup ←

FIFA should start promoting 2018 Russia World Cup more actively

By involving star footballers and advertising it during qualifying matches ahead of the tournament

World governing body FIFA should start promoting FIFA World Cup 2018 more actively by involving star footballers and advertising it during qualifying matches ahead of the tournament, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko has said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet with FIFA President Gianni Infantino here on Friday, reports Sputnik.

But Mutko said before the meeting that they expect FIFA to start its preparations to reach a global audience. Read More

AC Milan may get a Chinese touch

AC Milan may get a Chinese touch

Chinese dealmaker Sonny Wu, whose business holdings span renewable energy and lighting, is leading the proposed takeover of storied Italian soccer team AC Milan, people in the know said.

Wu's private equity firm GSR Capital is the main investor in the consortium that is in advanced talks to buy AC Milan from Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest S.p.A, according to the people. The Chinese businessman, who led two failed attempts to buy Royal Philips NV assets in the last 18 months, is valuing the soccer club at about 750 million euros ($825 million) including debt, one of the people said, asking not to be named because the discussions are private.

Steven Zheng, a Chinese businessman with solar power interests, is also part of the buyer group, the people said. The deal will involve new sponsorship agreements with the seven-time European champion, according to one of the people. Berlusconi, the former Italian premier, said this month he had reached a deal in principle with the Chinese consortium without identifying its makeup. Read More

Nike beats Adidas 2-0 in Euro 2016 finals

Nike beats Adidas 2-0 in Euro 2016 finals

For the first time in three decades of modern sports sponsorship, Adidas won't have a team playing in the European Championship final. Even worse: when host France and Portugalmeet on Sunday in Paris, everyone will be wearing jerseys emblazoned with Nike and its ubiquitous swoosh.

The two have battled in the $5 billion global soccer market since the 1990s. And nothing is more attractive to them as top national and club team jerseys Read More

Messi sentenced to twenty-one months for tax fraud

Messi sentenced to twenty-one months for tax fraud

A court in Spain on Wednesday sentenced Barcelona's star striker Lionel Messi and his father to 21 months in jail for tax fraud and slapped them with a fine of Euro 3.7 million ($4.1 million).

But these prison sentences are likely to be suspended, as is common in Spain for first offences for non-violent crimes carrying a sentence of less than two years.

The Barcelona court found the Argentina international and his father Jorge Horacio Messi guilty of using companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid paying taxes on Euro 4.16 million of Messi's income earned from his image rights from 2007-09.

The income related to Messi's image rights that was allegedly hidden includes endorsement deals with Danone, Adidas, Pepsi-Cola, Procter & Gamble or the Kuwait Food Company.

Chile manager Pizzi labels Messi as 'the best player of all time'

Chile manager Pizzi labels Messi as 'the best player of all time'

Soon after guiding Chile to their second straight Copa America Centenario title, manager Juan Antonio Pizzi has lavished praise on Argentina star striker Lionel Messi and described him as the 'best player of all time'.

Pizzi's announcement came right around the same time when Messi was announcing his retirement from international football following his country's 2-4 defeat at the hands of Chile in Copa America.

Although Messi missed his crucial penalty kick in the final match, Pizzi's opinion about his fellow countryman remains the same.

Admitting that he admires Messi, Pizzi believes it is very difficult to match the numbers that the Barcelona striker achieved during his career.

"Because I know what it means to value certain numbers and Messi's numbers are unmatched, and I don't think they will ever be matched because it's impossible for a player to find the things that Messi finds," Pizzi was quoted as saying by Goal.com.

The Chile coach also praised his side's successful defense of the Copa America title and said that his players helped them to become a strong national team, which can compete even with the best.

After both sides failed to score goal in regulation time and extra time, Chile and Argentina were taken to penalties to decide the winner.

Messi, who was making his 112th appearance for the national side, missed his spot-kick in the dramatic penalty shootout as Argentina lost their fourth major final in nine years.

Before two successive Copa America final defeats by Chile, Argentina were beaten 1-0 in the 2014 World Cup final by Germany. Messi's side had also suffered defeat against Brazil in the 2007 Copa America final. Read More