Brazil have recovered from their 7-1 shame in 2014, while Germany maintain their winners’ aura and Russia have to show they can lay on a world-class partyIt should not come as any surprise for Brazil and Germany to be earmarked as favourites for the World Cup in Russia. After all, they are the two most decorated countries in the tournament’s history (not forgetting absent friends Italy, who, like Germany, have four gold stars embroidered over their crest, one behind Brazil’s five).But when you add some context, some nuance, it reveals something about sport’s capacity to drag the badly defeated back up from the floor that most bookmakers are not willing to separate two heavyweights who flabbergasted the planet with the...
Lineker has been one of Fifa’s most visceral critics and it is baffling to find him presiding over events in Moscow, even in an industry where the phrase ’complete moral volte-face’ tends to draw blank looksAs the days ticked down you kept thinking he might still have something up his sleeve. Maybe this is a brilliantly orchestrated inside job. Maybe halfway through the World Cup draw in Moscow, as the balls are divvied up and shark-like Fifa men with faces as blank as the polished granite interior of a Panamanian bank vault yawn behind their hands, Gary Lineker will wink at the camera, drop the mask of sickly corporate piety and get on with trashing the place.This is how it...
Goalkeeper’s last international was marred by Italy’s disastrous failure to qualify for the World Cup but as the embodiment of the sternest resistance and generosity of spirit, the 39-year-old has few peersGianluigi Buffon was born in Carrara, the Tuscan city where they quarried the marble for Michelangelo’s David 500 years ago. Maybe even now there is a fresh slab being carved out, ready for a statue of Italy’s greatest goalkeeper, who left the international scene in tears this week after his team’s goalless draw with Sweden cost them a place in next summer’s World Cup finals but whose deeds guarantee him a place in the game’s history.What even the most gifted sculptor could never capture would be the sheer dynamism...
The teams who are heading for the 2018 World Cup finals have all been in action over the past week and while Germany and Brazil lead the way there are plenty of other sides who will fancy their chances in RussiaJoachim Löw is attempting to become the first manager to win successive World Cups since Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo in 1934 and 1938, and his masterplan is nearing completion. The experiment to blood some of Germany’s best young prospects at the Confederations Cup last summer is paying dividends, with Timo Werner emerging as a top-class option to lead the line having scored seven times in 10 international appearances. The draw against France on Tuesday thanks to Lars Stindl’s last-minute equaliser maintained...
We assess the performances of the 10 players who had most to prove in the games against Germany and Brazil and ask whether they should be in next summer’s squadNo goals scored and only three shots on target – it is fair to say England’s displays in their two end-of-year, prestige friendlies against Germany and Brazil were less than sparkling. However, the occasions did allow Gareth Southgate to fully test his increasingly favoured 3-5-2 formation and allow a host of players, some new, some old, to stake their claim for a place in his squad for next summer’s World Cup. The Guardian looks at how the 10 with the most to play for fared. Related: England 0-0 Brazil: five talking...