The draw for the eight groups for the final round of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which will be played from June 12 to July 13 in Brazil, was just held in Costa do Saupe near Salvador de Bahia.
Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last week in images.
They were two small Argentina players with the same enormous challenge -- to meet the expectations of a soccer-mad country. Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi have both proved themselves to be skilful giants on the world soccer stage despite their diminutive frames of 1.65 and 1.70 metres respectively.
Roberto Firmino scored twice and Marquinhos and Philippe Coutinho also got goals as Brazil hammered Bolivia 5-0 in their opening World Cup qualifier in Sao Paulo on Friday.
The third seeded Indian pair of Divij Sharan and Purav Raja made it to the quarter-finals in the ATP Challenger event in Furth, Germany, after a hard-earned victory in the opening round. Left-handed Divij and Raja defeated Andrej Martin of Slovak Republic and Hans Podlipnik-Castillo of Chile 6-3, 1-6, 10-8 in the first round of the euro 30,000 clay-court event.
Rohan Bopanna erased a one-set deficit to upset world No 51 Jose Acasuso and advance to the second round of the Malaysian Open while compatriot Somdev Devvarman made an early exit from the Thailand Open, losing his first round.
Juventus's pursuit of the Serie A title gathered pace on Monday as they opened up an 11-point lead at the top of the table after Arturo Vidal scored twice in a 2-0 win at Lazio.
Top seed Simona Halep came back from a set down for the third time in the tournament to beat Kazakhstan's rising star Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(5) to win the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships for the second time on Saturday. In a battle that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours, the match came down to a tiebreak where two shots that went agonisingly wide for Rybakina eventually decided the title in front of a noisy crowd that constantly chanted Halep's name.
Deputy US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on Wednesday announced that three indictments have been unsealed in the matter that collectively charge five Chinese nationals with computer hacking and charge two Malaysian nationals with helping some of those hackers target victims and sell the fruits of their crime.
Lionel Messi marked his retirement about face with a goal to give 10-man Argentina a 1-0 win over Uruguay on Thursday that lifted them to the top of the South American qualifying group for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Hong Kong is the world's freest economy according to the Index of Economic Freedom 2015.
Argentina's impressive opening qualifying victory over Chile last week was soon forgotten when the two-time World Cup winners were handed a humiliating 1-0 defeat by Venezuela on Tuesday.
Roger Federer will complete his preparations for next year's Australian Open at the Kooyong Classic.
The Epson International Pano Awards showcases the work of panoramic photographers worldwide and is the largest specialist competition for panoramic images. This year the competition received 4913 entries from 1258 photographers in 72 countries, but the overall winner of the 2019 Open competition is Mieke Boynton from Australia - the first female to win the title. Scroll down for stunning views.
Mourinho not concerned by Manchester United's slow pre-season
Brazil hammered Bolivia 5-0 in World Cup qualifiers on Thursday, giving coach Tite his third successive win in the most convincing performance from the five-time world champions for some time. Bolivia had not won a World Cup qualifier away from home since 1993 but Brazil were still excellent, particularly in the first half, when they scored four of their five goals.
New Manchester United signing Alexis Sanchez can act as a catalyst in the development of fellow forward Marcus Rashford, manager Jose Mourinho said.
Argentina lifted the gloom from a poor Copa America by routing Chile 4-1 in their opening 2014 World Cup qualifier on Friday, while Uruguay also scored four to get their campaign off to a good start.
World number one Roger Federer will begin the defence of his Australian Open title against Argentine Diego Hartfield while women's top seed Justine Henin of Belgium takes on Aiko Nakimura of Japan in the first round.
Aseem Chhabra watched some great films and some huge disappointments in 2020.
Fernando Gonzalez beat Tommy Robredo 6-1, 3-6, 6-1 and win his first title for two years at the China Open.
Hundreds of Argentines protested in the pouring rain on Saturday, demanding that soccer star Lionel Messi return to Argentina's national team after he unexpectedly quit following a loss in the regional Copa America final.
Lionel Messi trained alongside his Argentina team-mates at the Copa America Centenario as he targets a return from injury in his team's second Group D game against Panama. Messi, who has been nursing a sore back after sustaining an injury in a friendly against Honduras last month, has trained separately under the supervision of team medical staff since arriving in the United States. However the 28-year-old Barcelona superstar took part in a full training session on Wednesday at the University of Illinois campus, two days after sitting out Argentina's opening 2-1 victory over Chile in Santa Clara on Monday.
Forget Wimbledon or the French Open, Juan Martin del Potro wants to win the US Open more than any other tournament in the world. 'My dream is to win this tournament,' the soft-spoken Argentine said after stopping Marin Cilic 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 on Thursday to reach the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows.
The result was the largest margin of victory in either the men's or women's World Cup.
Argentina and Brazil both lost their opening World Cup qualifiers on Thursday as the South American campaign for Russia 2018 started in unexpected fashion.
Images from the FIFA World Cup qualifiers matches.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Switzerland captain Alex Frei and midfielder Valon Behrami have been ruled out of their opening World Cup Group H game against Spain on Wednesday, coach Ottmar Hitzfeld said on Monday.
New Zealand are placed in Group B along with Turkey, Paraguay and Mali.
Twice Shanghai Masters champion Roger Federer was far from his best against Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut but did enough to reach the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win on Thursday.
The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
Eighth seed American Andy Roddick has pulled out of the Toronto Masters because of illness, the ATP Tour said on Tuesday.
Brazil and Paraguay share second place in the World Cup qualifying standings with four points, behind Argentina on six.
The Australian Open champion will lead Russia in next month's Davis Cup World Group opening round tie against Chile.
Football icon Diego Maradona has claimed that current Argentina skipper Lionel Messi does not have the character to be a leader.
Spain's 1-0 extra time victory over Netherlands in the World Cup final on Sunday left them with a probably unwanted record of the fewest goals ever scored by the winners of the tournament.
A group of envoys including those from several Europe Union countries and a few Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) member states began a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday to take a first-hand account of the situation in newly-carved union territory, especially after the recently-concluded local body elections.
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