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Can two defensively suspect teams settle on a needed draw? If Team USA and Germany simply equal each other’s goal tallies, both sides will go through to the knockout rounds. In most cases, it would be expected that the two sides should line up in highly defensive formations and show little adventure, committing only the minimum number of men to any attack. If both sides play defensively, the draw will come regardless of any conspiracy.The problem is, neither side is built to play the sort of boring, unadventurous soccer such a fixture requires. American fans are well aware of the...

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- FIFA has banned Uruguay striker Luis Suarez from all football activities for four months for biting an opponent at the World Cup, ruling him out of the rest of the tournament and the start of the upcoming Premier League season. The ban also covers Uruguay's next nine international games, which goes beyond the next four months and rules him out of next year's Copa America. FIFA also fined the Liverpool striker 100,000 Swiss francs ($112,000).

But, aside from the music, the American contribution to soccer has been minimal, and American interest in it even, er, minimaller. Every four years, the same bien-pensants who urge the Administration to be more "multilateral" and to work through the UN also commend the virtues of the World Cup: the game is supposedly more poetic than American sports, as subtle and nuanced as French foreign policy. But Americans like their international competitions to be international in the sense of the current "international coalition against terror" at Kandahar airbase - that's to say, overwhelmingly American but with a few token Canadians....

When the World Cup pairings were announced in December, the date U.S. Coach Juergen Klinsmann circled most prominently on his calendar was June 26, the group-play final against Germany. That's the country Klinsmann, the player, led to a World Cup title in 1990 and the one Klinsmann, the coach, led to a third-place finish in the 2006 World Cup. So playing against his homeland in his first World Cup as the American coach was something he both feared and embraced. Now that the game is at hand, though, Klinsmann says he's feeling another emotion: joy. "This is going to be...

Unfortunate as it was to see Luis Suarez revert to his old ways and bite Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay's 1-0 win over Italy at the World Cup, it did inspire plenty of hilarious memes in honor of soccer's most famous flesh eater. With Tuesday's shameful display, Suarez, who now faces disciplinary hearings, became a three-time biting offender and now risks a two-year ban as a result.   That's no laughing matter, but these Suarez-inspired memes are.

EXPERTS have stressed that Luis Suarez bit a large Italian footballer and not a tiny child. With many calling for the Uruguayan striker to be jailed, doctors said Suarez’s victim had already made a full recovery, despite pretending to be dead. Sports injury specialist, Dr Martin Bishop, said: “The key difference between biting an opponent and going in hard with your studs up is that biting them is much, much more interesting. “The actual biting injury is usually pretty mild. Mr Suarez is a medium-sized Uruguayan, not a Sumatran tiger.” Dr Bishop added: “If Mr Suarez had ran towards the...

A Norwegian football fan has scooped a cool £500 after betting on Luis Suarez to bite somebody at the World Cup in Brazil. Suarez has twice been spotted biting opponents in recent years, so the punter thought he’d put £3 on the striker to take a munch out of somebody at Brazil 2014. And low and behold, towards the end of Uruguay’s clash with Italy, he bit Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini – triggering the bookmaker to pay out. With odds of 175/1, it was a pretty amazing outcome, despite Suarez’s reliability for biting his rivals. See above for the betting...

Fifa has opened disciplinary proceedings against the Uruguay striker Luis Suárez after he appeared to bite Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini. “Fifa can confirm that disciplinary proceedings have been opened against the player Luis Suárez of Uruguay,” the body said in a statement. Suárez could face a ban of up to 24 matches if found guilty. The incident occurred during Uruguay’s 1-0 victory over Italy, a result that knocked the 2006 champions out of the World Cup. With the score at 0-0, Suárez leaned into Chiellini before appearing to bite his opponent’s shoulder. Suárez was not punished by the referee but Fifa...

Uruguay's Luis Suarez has been accused of biting a player for the third time in his career after an incident with Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup. The Liverpool striker lunged at Italy defender Chiellini shortly before Diego Godin scored to give Uruguay a 1-0 win. Chiellini pulled his shirt down to show the referee a mark on his shoulder but no action was taken by the official. The maximum ban Suarez could face if governing body Fifa takes retrospective action is 24 matches or two years.

Looks like Mike Tyson isn’t the only one willing to take a bite out of his opponent in order to win:

SNIP McDonald’s Uruguay was quick to react to the opportunity with a little “real-time” marketing, inviting Mr. Suarez for a Big Mac hamburger via Twitter. “Hello @luis16suarez, if you are hungry come to have a bite of a big Mac,” a loose translation of the message read. SNIP

LUIS SANCHEZ BITES OPPONENT IN WORLD CUP This is the third time Suarez has bitten an opponent during a game. Unlike Bill Clinton, three was not a rape involved.

The vice-president of Fifa has called on the organisation “to fully investigate” match-fixing after an investigation found that the president of Ghana’s football association agreed that the national team would take part in games others were prepared to rig. Jim Boyce said that anyone involved in football match-fixing should be given heavy jail sentences and barred from the game for life. His comments came as Fifa announced that it was “evaluating the matter” and said that Ghana had reported the investigation by The Daily Telegraph and Channel Four’s Dispatches programme to the governing body. The World Cup organiser said it...

Police on horseback and clad in riot gear arrested several rowdy soccer fans as they worked to disperse crowds who poured into the streets of Huntington Park on Monday following Mexico’s latest win in the World Cup. Huntington Park police, with support from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said they arrested four people, including two for public intoxication, one for hurling a bottle and another for refusing to leave the area. Significant traffic delays were reported across the city. Authorities closed off several blocks of the heavily trafficked Pacific Boulevard shopping corridor north of Florence Avenue. Drivers were advised...

Spain and their tiki taka might be out of the World Cup, but The Straits Times' Tiki and Taka are still going strong in the Straits Times Hamster Cup. The two hamsters have so far gone head-to-head to predict two fixtures, and even more incredibly, got both results right. They first played out a Uruguayan victory over England, and then a draw for the fixture between Portugal and USA. Sure, they might not have got the scores spot on, but cut them some slack. They are hamsters after all. They are supposed to just eat their seeds and nuts, go...

Hundreds of fans celebrating Mexico’s 3-1 World Cup win over Croatia faced off with police in the streets of Huntington Park, south of downtown Los Angeles, on Monday.

Sunday's match was a high point in a World Cup that's already shattering social-media records. ..... The Cup's opening match, between host country Brazil and Croatia, spurred 12.2 million tweets alone -- possibly not surprising when you consider that soccer-crazy Brazil has the fifth-most Twitter users in the world, behind the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The tournament's first week, June 12 to 18, spurred 459 million posts, likes and comments on Facebook, according to the company. Compare that to 185 million interactions about the Super Bowl, 120 million for the Sochi Winter Olympics and 25.4 million for...

Football's world governing body Fifa has cleared Mexico of improper conduct charges after claims their fans used homophobic chants at a World Cup match. The fans shouted the Spanish word "puto" ("male prostitute" in Mexican slang) every time Cameroon's goalkeeper took a goalkick at the game on 13 June. But Fifa now said the incident in question "was not considered insulting in the specific context". A leading anti-discrimination organisation criticised Fifa's move. Fare, which brings together activists also fighting inequality in football, said the ruling by Fifa's disciplinary committee was "disappointing". It added that the governing body needed to take...

The United States and Germany both have four points and are atop Group G over Ghana and Portugal who have one point each. In the group stage of the World Cup, wins are worth three points, and draws are worth one point. All four teams have one game remaining. Germany and the U.S. will play Thursday in Recife, and Ghana and Portugal will kick off at the same time in Brasilia. Here are the scenarios: