Contested by senior men’s national football teams, the Football World Cup (also known as the FIFA World Cup) is held every four years and involves 32 teams who compete for the title of World Champion. Over the period of a month, matches are held in different venues all across the host country’s stadiums (this phase is called the Finals, seeing that there are Qualifying Phases that take place within the three years preceding the tournament). Brazil is hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and since everyone is already crazy with matches and winners, we decided to bring you some interesting facts that might just surprise you.
- The 2014 Brazil World Cup will be the first ever to include Goal-Line technology. This technology involves cameras that are set up around the rim of each host stadium so that they can focus on the goal individually. Referees will receive visual signs and feel vibrations on a special watch when a goal is shot.
- There are five world champions within the Organization Committee. Amarildo Tavares da Silva, José Roberto Gama de Oliveira (Bebeto), Carlos Alberto Torres, Marta Vieira da Silva, Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima and Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo are on the Committee and were members of the Brazil team when it won in Sweden, Chile, Mexico, USA and South Korea/Japan.
- Brazil is hosting the World Cup for the second time. It did it first back in 1950 (the fourth ever World Cup) when they build the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro (they will be reusing the stadium for this World Cup).
- Apart from Brazil, there are 4 other countries to host the World Cup: Mexico, Italy, France, and Germany.
- It is for the first time that two consecutive World Cups have not taken place in Europe. In 2018, the FIFA World Cup will return to Europe when Russia will be awarded the pleasure of hosting.
- Drones and Robots are being used during the World Cup- these unmanned aircrafts will monitor crowds for defense purposes.
- The Brazil World Cup is the most expensive up to date. As opposed to the last 5 world cups (USA $30 million, France $40 million, Japan/South Korea $5 billion, Germany $6 billion and South Africa $4 billion), the 2014 World Cup will cost as much as $16 billion.
- At the 2014 World Cup, a paraplegic will make the first kick while he will be wearing an exoskeleton suit.
- In Brazil, weather conditions can be extreme and it has been allowed that referees stop matches if the heat becomes too intense (especially in cities such as Manaus, Natal, Fortaleza or Recife). During such breaks, players have the possibility of hydrating themselves.
- There are 17 songs on the official World Cup Music Album of 2014, including songs from J Lo, Pitbull, Santana& Wyclef Jean, Ricky Martin, Psirico, Shakira, Magic! Baha Men and many others.
Weird demands have been made by each country and here are some of them :
- France wanted to have 2 types of soap for each room. And soaps must be in liquid form.
- Portugal insisted on having a console in each room as well as six security guards, two of them being in charge of the safety of Cristiano Ronaldo
- Uruguay requested silent air conditioning
- Algeria asked for a Quran to be found in each room
- Ecuador wanted to have baskets with different types of bananas (Ecuadorian of course) in each room
- England required that one of the three restaurants are kept for their exclusive use and that they have sole use of the swimming pool and gym for a few hours daily.
- Japan wanted that all rooms have a Jacuzzi
- Colombia asked for 15 youth players to be deemed the lucky participants in their training sessions.
