Argentina are on a 36-match unbeaten run with top scorer and captain Messi playing his fifth and last World Cup in search of the elusive honour
One could argue that his relationship with the World Cup over the last 12 years reflects his entire career -- a tale of hope, disappointment, controversy, pain and underachievement.
France, who were 2-0 up courtesy of Arthur Rinderknech and Adrian Mannarino, faced little resistance from Ecuador as wins for Benjamin Bonzi and the doubles pair of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicholas Mahut secured victory for the 10-times champions.
In the women's doubles, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand won 21-18, 21-19 against the Dutch duo of Debora Jille and Cheryl Seinen. Treesa and Gayatri face Chinese Taipei's Hsu Ya Ching and Lin Wan Ching in the quarter-finals.
The country is slated to host the tournament from October 11 to 30 across three venues -- Bhubaneswar's Kalinga Stadium, Goa's Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Navi Mumbai's DY Patil Stadium.
Deepika Kumari will now be the sole entry in the women's section at the Tokyo Games. It will be her third successive Olympics.
Six-time World champion M C Mary Kom's (51kg) pursuit of a second Olympic medal ended in the pre-quarterfinals of the Tokyo Games as she went down to 2016 edition's bronze-medallist Ingrit Valencia in a fiercely-fought showdown.
A fun filled trip to Peru and Colombia.
Six-time World champion M C Mary Kom's pursuit of a second Olympic medal ended in the pre-quarter-finals of the Tokyo Games after she went down to Colombia's Ingrit Valencia, the 2016 edition's bronze-medallist, in a fiercely-fought 51kg showdown on Thursday.
The team may be able to rely on Real Madrid's young trio of Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo and Eder Militao and Premier League rising stars Bruno Guimaraes, Antony and Gabriel Martinelli, among others.
Giroud, at 36, brings experience and guile to France's attack, while Mbappe, 23, is blessed with pace
The study estimates that 1,134,000 children lost a parent or custodial grandparent due to COVID-19. Of these, 10,42,000 children lost their mother, father or both. Most lost one, not both parents.
Brazil against Argentina is a true clasico. The teams first met in 1914 and in the years since have established themselves as two of the most storied sides in world soccer. Together they have won seven World Cups.
Desai, a former gold medallist at the Fazza Championships, led from start to finish to end the race in 24.42 seconds, ahead of Thailand's Denpoom Kotcharang (25.78 sec) and Kenneth Jenssen Heggdal of Norway (27.08 sec).
Argentina captain Lionel Messi pulled his side level in the 57th minute after a handball by Paraguay's Ivan Peris which no-one on the pitch appealed for but was spotted by a VAR review.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern wrote in an open letter to FIFA on Tuesday that the two countries would host a tournament to be proud of.
The lifters will work with Dr Aaron Horschig, a former weightlifter-turned-physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach.
Qatar will be the first team since Italy in the second World Cup in 1934 to participate in the finals for the first time as a host without having previously qualified for the tournament.
A summary of Thursday's South American World Cup qualifiers.
The Bolivian and Chilean football teams announced more positive COVID-19 tests among players or staff
Glimpses of anti-Russia protests in different parts of the world.
India's crude oil imports are coming in from a changing mix of countries, with the top three accounting for around 60 per cent of total imports. Russia emerged as the largest source of crude oil imports for India in June, as per the latest available data from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The data which is released with a lag, showed that Russian imports accounted for 24 per cent of the total crude imports into the country.
Glimpses of how Harnaaz inched closer and closer to the Miss Universe title.
In 1937, a hydrogen-powered German airship flying into New Jersey caught fire and crashed, killing 35 passengers on board. It was sort of a man-made disaster as some 100 people were loaded on to a balloon filled with the most flammable material in the universe. The airship was named Hindenburg. Eight decades later, in 2017, a graduate of international business management from the University of Connecticut founded a "forensic financial research" firm to specialise in spotting wrongdoings and frauds, or what it calls man-made disasters, at companies around the globe and take market bets against them.
Argentine great Diego Maradona said England perpetrated a "monumental robbery" in their World Cup victory over Colombia and accused referee Mark Geiger of not being up to such a game.
Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Paula Badosa of Spain, earned second-round wins
Trump said countries such as Afghanistan, India, The Bahamas, Belize, Burma, Colombia, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic among others are a major drug transit or illicit drug producing nations.
Images from the FIFA World Cup group fixtures between Costa Rica and Uruguay and Colombia and Greece.
Colombian soccer supporters brought a wave of tropical exuberance to the stolid citizens of Saransk
On Saturday evening, Lionel Messi finally got what had eluded arguably the finest footballer of his generation throughout his glorious career -- a trophy playing for his country.
The United States Secret Service prostitution scandal has now grown to include a 12th member of the elite security agency, even as the Pentagon has suspended clearances of all implicated military personnel. Rediff.com takes a look at the chain of events.
Even as the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries remains hostile, there is growing coordination between India and Pakistan on one multilateral forum - the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both countries have made two joint submissions at the WTO as co-sponsors in the past two months. In June, Pakistan joined India, Cuba, and 44 African countries, seeking sufficient flexibility in intellectual property rights for developing countries to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
A look at India's schedule at the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday, July 31, 2021.
The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.
The balloon, which was being used by the People's Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters.
'He didn't have the strength to move and so he stayed inside and then he didn't have the strength to respond also, and he became passive and there the Colombian scored a lot of points.'
A summary of Thursday's World Cup qualifiers.
He has been in a rich vein of form at international level too, leading Poland to the finals with 16 goals,
Six-time World champion M C Mary Kom slammed the International Olympic Committee's Boxing Task Force for "poor judging" after losing her flyweight (51kg) pre-quarter-final at the Tokyo Games on Thursday.
India's time use survey for January-December 2019 had found that an average person in urban areas spends 485 (eight hours and five minutes) minutes on employment and related activities.
