No one expects Nigeria to win, but by now everyone knows that shirt...
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Former Real Madrid and Spain forward Raul has joined New York Cosmos for the 2015 season on a "multi-year" contract pending a medical, the North American Soccer League (NASL) club said on Thursday.
The Olympic torch was raised before Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue on Friday on the final leg of its journey to the opening ceremony of the Olympics, as Brazil excitedly put the final touches to seven years of preparations.
Usain Bolt is determined to concrete his legacy by capping eight years of sprint dominance by defending his 100, 200 and 4x100 metres relay titles in Rio in what he has said will be his final Olympics.
She travels the world in a pink bikini and a shares a powerful message of a clean and green Earth.
She travels the world in a pink bikini and a shares a powerful message of a clean and green Earth.
Lionel Messi reclaimed the FIFA Ballon d'Or award for the world player of the year on Monday from his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo who had walked off with the award for the previous two years.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Italy's renowned World Cup winner Alessandro Del Piero has called the Indian Super League football tournament an 'adventure' and said he was 'enthusiastic' about embarking on this new journey.
Fireworks light up the night sky above the Maracana as some 50,000 spectators present, and some 3 billion people tuned in around the world as Brazil lifted the curtain on its second major sporting event in two years, after the 2014 soccer World Cup.
Football superstars Ronaldinho, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes will showcase their skills in front of Indian fans when the Premier Futsal begins amid hype and anticipation in Chennai on Friday. The inaugural season of Premier Futsal, touted to be the world's first multi-national league, will kick off with some of most well known footballers rubbing shoulders will some of the leading futsallers in the world. The first match-day of the inaugural season will see Falcao's Chennai 5's go against Giggs' Mumbai 5's. The second game of the opening day would be Ronaldinho's Goa 5's vs Hernan Crespo's Kolkata 5's.
From the debate-arousing introduction of VAR to maximum number of Penalties to the superb Ronaldo, here are the A to Z of the ongoing 2018 World Cup
It's not every day that a European star comes to India to play in a football league. That's why when Alessandro Del Piero turns up to be a part of the Indian Super League it's reason to celebrate.
Cricket aficionados' love, even passion, for their "god" Sachin Tendulkar is unlikely to recede even after his playing days.
Barcelona and Brazil striker Neymar has launched an attack on his former club Santos and spoken out in support of his father, insisting he had the right to make millions from the player's transfer last year.
Clubbed in a veritable group of death for next year's World Cup, Australia believe they can spring a surprise while fellow Asian qualifiers Japan, South Korea and Iran were more cautious with their optimism despite being dealt kinder draws.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
The mesmerising moments that made the 2018 FIFA World Cup a blockbuster worldwide.
The plane that crashed in Colombia virtually wiping out an entire Brazilian football team was running out of fuel, had no electrical power, and was preparing for an emergency landing, according to the pilot's final words. The disaster on Monday night killed 71 people and sent shock waves round the global football world. Only six on board the LAMIA Bolivia charter flight survived, including three of the Chapecoense football squad en route to the biggest game in their history: the Copa Sudamericana final.
This and more from the happenings in the world of football
Cricket has few examples of players calling it quits when very much at the top their game. It is anything but coincidence that most of them happen to be from the most successful nation in the history of the sport.
Breaking records has become Cristiano Ronaldo's favourite pastime. Very few footballers can do everything and Ronaldo is of that rare breed
Amid the buzz surrounding what has been termed a game-changer for Indian football, Brazilian legend Zico says the 158-ranked nation's hopes of scaling greater heights in the world sport depends solely on the local players' "mentality" and their "ability" to develop.
The Indian cricketer also gave his thumbs up to ISL saying it could prove to be a blessing in disguise for the younger players in the country.
The news comes as little surprise as Sepp Blatter had dropped strong hints he would stand again and if he sees out his potential four-year term he will be 83 by the time of the next planned election in 2019.
'He is the man,' US President Barack Obama had said at a G-20 gathering, enhancing Lula's stature. Six years later, has Brazil's impressive economic growth turned to sand? Will a President, who enjoyed an 80 per cent approval rate in his country, be arrested? Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil, explains what has gone wrong in one of India's BRICS partner nations.
UEFA president Michel Platini hit out at FIFA chief Sepp Blatter on Friday, saying the Swiss has stopped serving the cause of football.
'Living in Brazil, I had internalised the football mythology of that country, the way I had learnt Mahabharata stories in my childhood. The tragedy at the Maracana stadium in 1950, when a confident Brazil had lost to Uruguay in the finals. They tell the story of this debacle, this 'Hiroshima' that hit them, like the Shias lament the death of Ali. It led to the Brazilian team burning their white uniforms and switching later to Yellow and blue symbolising their national colours,' says Ambassador B S Prakash, India's former envoy to Brazil.
FIFA will go ahead with its controversial decision to stage World Cup matches at midday in tropical venues, president Sepp Blatter said on Tuesday as soccer's governing body announced a bafflingly complex procedure for Friday's draw.
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
'The World Cup is being played in the football crazy country after 64 years and nothing excites the Brazilians more than the sacred game,' says B S Prakash, India's former ambassador to Brazil.
Away from the cricket field, it was a year in which Sania Mirza was unarguably the biggest success story with her staggering 10 titles on the Tour -- two of them Grand Slams.
'Every Ali obituary I read made the point that he 'transcended his sport' -- a reference to the many battles he fought with America even as he fought in America.' 'What the obituaries leave out is that Ali equally transcended the boundaries of geography and of information -- as witness the Chennai teen who assimilated that most mobile of fighters through still images shorn of context.'
