2014 FIFA World Cup
The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in 2007. It was the second time that Brazil staged the competition, the first being in 1950, and the fifth time that it was held in South America.
31 national teams advanced through qualification competitions to join the host nation in the final tournament. A total of 64 matches were played in 12 venues located in as many host cities across Brazil. For the first time at a World Cup finals, match officials used goal-line technology, as well as vanishing spray for free kicks. FIFA Fan Fests in each host city gathered a total of 5 million people, and the country received 1 million visitors from 202 countries. Spain, the defending champions, were eliminated at the group stage. Host nation Brazil, who had won the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, lost to Germany 7–1 in the semi-finals and eventually finished in fourth place.
In the final, Germany defeated Argentina 1–0 after extra time following a half-volley goal by Mario Götze in the 113th minute of the final to win the tournament and secure the country's fourth world title, the first after German reunification in 1990, when as West Germany they also beat Argentina by the same score in 90 minutes in the World Cup final. It was Germany's first major tournament win since UEFA Euro 1996. Germany became the first European team to win a World Cup staged in the Americas, and this result marked the third consecutive title won by a European team, after Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010, - a record-breaking streak by the teams from the same continent continued by France four years later.
This is currently the most recent World Cup to feature all eight teams that had previously won the tournament.
Host selection
In March 2003, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South America for the first time since 1978, in line with its policy at the time of rotating the right to host the World Cup among different confederations. With the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted in South Africa, it would be the second consecutive World Cup outside Europe, which was a first for the tournament. It was also sixth time in the Southern Hemisphere. Only Brazil and Colombia formally declared their candidacy but, after the withdrawal of the latter from the process, Brazil was officially elected as host nation unopposed on 30 October 2007.Participating teams and officials
Qualification
Qualification was held between June 2011 and November 2013. Twenty-four of the 32 qualifiers were returning participants from the 2010 World Cup.- Bosnia and Herzegovina were the only team with no previous appearance at the World Cup finals.
- Colombia qualified for the World Cup after 16 years of absence.
- Belgium and Russia both returned after 12 years.
- This was also the first World Cup for 32 years that did not feature a representative from the Nordic countries.
- Iran, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Croatia returned to the tournament after missing the 2010 tournament.
- The highest ranked team not to qualify was Ukraine, while the lowest ranked team that did qualify was Australia.
;AFC
- None qualified
Final draw
The draw took place on 6 December 2013 at the Costa do Sauípe resort in Bahia, during which the teams were drawn by various past World Cup-winning players. Hosted by TV presentators Fernanda Lima and Tadeu Schmidt and conducted by the FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke, the draw featured football celebrities from all FIFA World Cup champion countries such as Cafu, Fabio Cannavaro, Lothar Matthäus, Zinédine Zidane, Mario Alberto Kempes, Fernando Hierro, Geoff Hurst and Alcides Ghiggia.The 32 participating teams were drawn into eight groups. In preparation for this, the teams were organised into four pots with the seven highest-ranked teams joining host nation Brazil in the seeded pot. As with the previous tournaments, FIFA aimed to create groups which maximised geographic separation and therefore the unseeded teams were arranged into pots based on geographic considerations. Under the draw procedure, one randomly drawn team – Italy – was firstly relocated from Pot 4 to Pot 2 to create four equal pots of eight teams.
| Group A | Group B | Group C | Group D |
| Group E | Group F | Group G | Group H |
Officials
In March 2013, FIFA published a list of 52 prospective referees, each paired, on the basis of nationality, with two assistant referees, from all six football confederations for the tournament. On 14 January 2014, the FIFA Referees Committee appointed 25 referee trios and eight support duos representing 43 countries for the tournament.Yuichi Nishimura from Japan acted as referee in the opening match whereas Nicola Rizzoli from Italy acted as referee in the final.
Squads
As with the 2010 tournament, each team's squad consisted of 23 players. Each participating national association had to confirm their final 23-player squad no later than 10 days before the start of the tournament. Teams were permitted to make late replacements in the event of serious injury, at any time up to 24 hours before their first game. During a match, all remaining squad members not named in the starting team were available to be one of the three permitted substitutions.Venues
12 venues in twelve cities were selected for the tournament. The venues covered all the main regions of Brazil and created more evenly distributed hosting than the 1950 finals in Brazil. Consequently, the tournament required long-distance travel for teams. While all six host cities from the 1950 tournament were among the 12 chosen, the Maracanã was the only stadium common to both tournaments. During the World Cup, Brazilian cities were also home to the participating teams at 32 separate base camps, as well as staging official fan fests where supporters could view the games.The Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro was the only stadium to previously have hosted the 1950 FIFA World Cup. The most used stadiums were the Maracanã and the new Estádio Nacional in Brasília, which hosted seven matches each. The least-used venues were in Cuiabá, Manaus, Natal, and Curitiba, which hosted four matches each; as the four smallest stadiums in use at the tournament, they did not host any knockout round matches.
Team base camps
Base camps were used by the 32 national squads to stay and train before and during the World Cup tournament. On 31 January 2014, FIFA announced the base camps for each participating team, having earlier circulated a brochure of 84 prospective locations. Most teams opted to stay in the Southeast Region of Brazil, with only eight teams choosing other regions; five teams opted to stay in the Northeast Region and three teams opted to stay in the South Region. None opted to stay in the North Region or the Central-West Region. Campo Bahia, the base camp of the eventual champion Germany, attracted much interest.FIFA Fan Fests
For a third consecutive World Cup tournament, FIFA staged FIFA Fan Fests in each of the 12 host cities throughout the competition. Prominent examples were the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, which already held a Fan Fest in 2010, and São Paulo's Vale do Anhangabaú. The first official event took place on Iracema Beach, in Fortaleza, on 8 June 2014.Innovations
Technologies
In order to avoid ghost goals, the 2014 World Cup introduced goal-line technology following successful trials at, among other competitions, the 2013 Confederations Cup. The chosen Goal Control system featured 14 high speed cameras, 7 directed to each of the goals. Data were sent to the central image-processing centre, where a virtual representation of the ball was output on a widescreen to confirm the goal. The referee was equipped with a watch which vibrated and displayed a signal upon a goal. France's second goal in their group game against Honduras was the first time goal-line technology was needed to confirm that a goal should be given.Following successful trials, FIFA approved the use of vanishing spray by the referees for the first time at a World Cup Finals. The water-based spray, which disappears within minutes of application, can be used to mark a ten-yard line for the defending team during a free kick and also to draw where the ball is to be placed for a free kick.
The Adidas Brazuca was the official match ball of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and was supplied by Forward Sports of Sialkot, Pakistan. Adidas created a new design of ball after criticisms of the Adidas Jabulani used in the previous World Cup. The number of panels was reduced to six, with the panels being thermally bonded. This created a ball with increased consistency and aerodynamics compared to its predecessor. Furthermore, Adidas underwent an extensive testing process lasting more than two years to produce a ball that would meet the approval of football professionals.