Best World Cup ever?
Upsets and attacking play have made the opening stages of soccer's World Cup the best ever, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said.
Upsets and attacking play have made the opening stages of soccer's World Cup the best ever, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said.
The average goals per match in the first 25 games of the monthlong tournament is the highest in 44 years, while Spain became the first champion in the 84-year history of the competition to exit before playing its final group game. The last edition in South Africa four years ago had the lowest goal average in 20 years.
There have been 74 goals in the first 25 games, for an average of 2.96 goals per match, putting the 2014 event on course for the highest average since the Mexico tourney in 1970.
"I am a very happy man, very happy," Blatter said.
Hodgson stays put
Roy Hodgson has been asked by the English Football Association to remain as head coach until 2016 despite the team being eliminated at the World Cup group stage for the first time since 1958.
England opened the tournament in Brazil with losses to Italy and Uruguay, and its hopes of advancing from Group D ended when Italy lost, 1-0, to Costa Rica on Friday.
"We're supportive of Roy Hodgson," FA chairman Greg Dyke said. "We do not see any value in changing. We think Roy has done a good job ... and we hope to do better in the European Championships."
Dyke was satisfied with how England's youthful team performed.
"Everybody thought we played really well in the first game [against Italy] and narrowly lost," he said. "In the second game it could have gone either way. We were not humiliated or anything like that."
Hodgson insisted after Thursday's 2-1 loss to Uruguay that he would not walk away from the job.
"I'm bitterly disappointed, of course, but I don't feel I need to resign," the former Inter Milan, Liverpool, and Switzerland coach said.
Coach defends gay slur
Mexico coach Miguel Herrera has defended World Cup fans chanting a gay slur which is under investigation by the sport's international governing body.
Mexico fans shouting the slur as the rival team's goalkeeper takes a goal kick is "not that bad," Herrera said Friday in Santos.
"We're with our fans. It's something they do to pressure the opposing goalkeeper," he said.
Fare, the European fan-monitoring group, reported the chants at Mexico's 1-0 win over Cameroon in Natal.
FIFA subsequently opened a disciplinary case against the Mexico federation, which is responsible for the behavior of its fans inside stadiums.