World Cup 2014 round-up: Italy gets fruity for their World Cup campaign

In other World Cup 2014 news, Cyberspace is cup crazy, Fifa bans German legend, and Kenya seeks inspiration.

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli during a training session of the Italian team at the Arena Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil, on Friday. Daniel Dal Zennaro / EPA / June 13. 2014

Italy’s World Cup campaign

Italy are going tropical as they head into the jungle. When they face England at the World Cup’s Amazonian venue of Manaus today, they will be relying on some local fruits and vegetables to help them deal with the extreme heat and humidity. “Coconut water is the ideal supplement after matches and training sessions and pineapple and papaya also work well for their anti-inflammatory powers,” team nutritionist Elisabetta Orsi said. After Italy struggled with the heat and humidity at last year’s Confederations Cup, coach Cesare Prandelli put a serious emphasis on fitness and nutrition in the build-up to this tournament. For the first time it is not the Italy squad’s chef who decides on the menu for the players but the team’s medical staff and two nutritionists. Last year in Fortaleza, eight Italy players asked to be substituted at half-time of a stifling semi-final against Spain, which they went on to lose in a penalty shoot-out. “I told the players to choose among themselves,” Prandelli said. “I’ve never had eight players ask to be substituted all at the same time.”

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Cool breaks likely

World Cup officials are to use cooling breaks for the first time as the tournament heats up, Fifa officials said yesterday. Fifa sanctioned the use of heat breaks after appeals from coaches including Italy’s Prandelli after last year’s Confederations Cup. Fifa spokeswoman Delia Fischer said stoppages of three minutes could be ordered by referees if the “Wet Bulb Globe Temperature” (WBGT) exceeds 32°C. The WBGT is calculated by measuring a combination of different factors such as air temperature, humidity, sunlight and wind speed. “It will be at the discretion of the referee,” Fischer said.

Social media frenzy

Brazil’s 3-1 win over Croatia in the World Cup opener on Thursday generated 58 million posts on Facebook, almost five times more than this year’s Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, the social media company said yesterday. The most commented play on Facebook was Neymar’s first goal, which levelled the match. With 16 million posts, Brazil was the most active country on Facebook during the game, followed by the United States and England. Brazil’s controversial win also generated massive Twitter traffic with more than 12.2 million tweets. According to Twitter – which has 255 million users around the world – tweeters from more than 150 countries participated in the exchanges.

Beckenbauer banned

Former Germany great Franz Beckenbauer has been banned from all football activities for 90 days for not co-operating with an investigation into Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid. Fifa says the 90-day provisional ban was requested by ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia. Beckenbauer was a voting member of Fifa’s executive committee in December 2010 when it chose Qatar and Russia as 2018 World Cup host. He said last week that he rejected two attempts by Garcia to speak with him.

Kenya at cup to watch

Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday honoured his pledge to sponsor the national football team to travel to Brazil to watch the World Cup. Kenya have never qualified for the tournament but Kenyatta said the trip would provide the players with the inspiration to fight and qualify for the 2018 finals in Russia. “My wife and I sponsor Harambee Stars, not to participate but to watch the World Cup to give them inspiration,” said Kenyatta when he handed the team their air-tickets. Eighteen players and four officials will make the trip tomorrow, because of a pledge Kenyatta made to the team after winning the regional Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup tournament in Nairobi last December.

Fifa issues warning over fake World Cup tickets

High-quality forged World Cup tickets, which are almost impossible to detect, have been found in Brazil and many more may be in circulation, officials said yesterday. Fifa marketing chief Thierry Weil told a press conference that about 50 people holding the bogus tickets were turned away from Thursday’s tournament-opening game between Brazil and Croatia in Sao Paulo. Weil produced an example of the sophisticated fake tickets discovered, warning fans that they were almost undetectable. The only way of telling the tickets were forged was the absence of a microchip scanned by stadium officials. “We have had cases of parents with children who have bought tickets and when they get to the turnstile they are turned away because they find the tickets are fake,” Weil said. “Often they say have bought the ticket from a friend of a friend but the only tickets guaranteed to get you in the stadium are tickets from Fifa.”

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