Everyone knew it would be difficult for Brazil without the injured star Neymar and the suspended captain, Thiago Silva, but nobody imagined this feeble capitulation — four goals surrendered to Germany in six minutes during a 7-1 rout in a World Cup semifinal. Early on, Brazil’s players bickered, lost their cool, then lost their fight. The country of the beautiful game was left to face a grotesque humiliation.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa was one of the first glimpses of this new German identity on the international stage. In the eyes of many it represented a modern Germany, free from the shackles of its history, as the center of European affairs and subsequently, highlighting the changing face of race and ethnicity on the continent.

Hosting the Olympics is nice and all, but, after watching host city after host city getbludgeoned by the International Olympic Committee, and the media, for their prep work as they try to pull together what has become a colossus of an event, perhaps we’ve reached a tipping point—nobody really wants to host the Olympics anymore. While that may be a bit of an overstatement, perhaps this is more accurate: Beijing is set to be the perma-host of budget busting Olympic Games.

When you think of North Korea, "cheerleaders" may not be the first thing that springs to mind.  But the news that Pyongyang plans to send a "cheerleading squad" to the South Korean city of Incheon for the upcoming Asian Games is not just a surprising and weird news story – it may actually be quite an important political sign.

The partition of British India followed World War II, and ever since the independent states of India and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the two countries have had a volatile relationship.  On the tennis court, however, India's Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi have mended some of the political and sporting divide between their two countries by forming a successful partnership on and off the court.

 When huge protests rocked Brazilian cities a year ago, Raphael Rabelo was among the multitudes in the streets, even joining the thousands of demonstrators enraged with political corruption and spending on lavish World Cup stadiums who danced on the roof of the Congress building in Brasília. But in a U-turn reflecting shifting attitudes in Brazil about the soccer tournament now that it is underway, Mr.

The lines between the World Cup and diplomacy have always been blurry. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry wrote an opinion piecein the Washington Post about the need to reach a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran, as the 20 July deadline to reach a final agreement rapidly draws near. Perhaps with sport on his mind, he wrote: "There may be pressure to put more time on the clock."