This is Purin: he makes goals, blocks shots and looks adorable doing it. We already have a Puppy Bowl, maybe we need a Puppy Cup in our lives.

Brazilian police and striking subway workers clashed Monday in a central commuter station ahead of the World Cup opening match this week.

THE mesmerising wizardry of Lionel Messi and the muscular grace of Cristiano Ronaldo are joys to behold. But for deep-dyed internationalists like this newspaper, the game’s true beauty lies in its long reach, from east to west and north to south. Football, more than any other sport, has thrived on globalisation. Nearly half of humanity will watch at least part of the World Cup, which kicks off in Brazil on June 12th.

Avid soccer fans who are planning to travel to Brazil for the FIFA World Cup, or the 2016 Summer Olympic Games or the Paralympic Games in Brazil should see their doctors at least four weeks before travelling, according to new advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The World Cup continues to get bigger and better, aging like a fine wine. It’s not just the tournament itself, though, that is maturing, going from a tournament in 1930 where anyone who wanted to participate was invited, and where the European teams traveled by boat, to the current 32-team behemoth that involves years of qualification.

Former US president's exasperation at the Fifa decision-making process led to investigations that now threaten to reverse the decision to award the 2022 finals to a football desert

Anonymous have announced they are preparing to launch a cyber-attack on the World Cup’s corporate sponsors during the tournament that starts in two weeks. In an interview with news agency Reuters, one masked member of the group who called himself Che Commodore, said that preparations for a wide-scale campaign had begun.

According to the locals, it's the bar capital of the world, with more than 12,000 catering for the five million citizens of Brazil's third city. Others will recall Belo Horizonte as the scene of England's most humiliating football defeat, when a hearse driver and teacher from the US stunned the national team at the 1950 World Cup.

More than 1,400 football hooligans in England will have to hand their passports to police in the coming days to stop them going to the World Cup. Passports must be surrendered on Monday or Tuesday, ahead of the tournament in Brazil which starts on 12 June.

Fifa is facing fresh allegations of corruption over its controversial decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

Banco de Chile, Miners support for Chile's National Football Team - FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014. When Chile joins, impossible things start happening. Because Chile becomes more Chile when it comes to achieve a goal. Because NOTHING is IMPOSSIBLE for a Chilean!

Resplendent in tribal headgear and body point, with bows and arrows held aloft, aiming their weapons at Brasilia's riot police, these indigenous protesters took on horse-mounted riot police armed with tear gas and shields. These were the extraordinary scenes just hours before Brazil's World Cup team began their training for the tournament, as the índios attempted to force their way toward the capital's National Stadium, firing arrows and throwing rocks.

Not too long ago, Tarcísio Monteiro was so obsessed with World Cup soccer he bought a plastic World Cup trophy for his room in a cramped Rio de Janeiro slum. Now that Brazil is hosting the event, he has become so angry about the money being spent that he joined mass protests against it. He bought goggles for the tear gas and hung them near his trophy.

Track World Cup odds, predictions and match analysis. Share your predictions and monitor match results and match schedule.

All 32 World Cup teams have now published their cheesy slogans for the World Cup finals and some are truly horrendous and comical. Take a look through the collection and tell us which you think is the worst? The best? Well, you might struggle with that.

Brazil, by both area and population, is the fifth-largest nation on earth. Its economy is perhaps the sixth- or seventh-largest and will soon surpass those of France and Britain. Yet this great state has barely registered its presence globally. In the complex flux of globalised popular culture or the rarefied circuits of high culture and the sciences, Brazil is an undercurrent.

STANFORD, Calif. — We all know the main motivation for a player to make the U.S. World Cup team is to represent his country at the world’s biggest sporting event. …

We all know that climate change threatens to devastate coastal cities, disrupt food production, and trigger a refugee crisis of untold proportions. It’s also bad for a nation’s credit rating, according to a report released Thursday by Standard & Poor’s. That would be seem to be the least of the worries of, say, Vietnam, which S&P ranked dead last of 116 countries’ vulnerability to climate change-related credit risk.

Brazilian police have put together a pamphlet of top tips for staying safe during the World Cup next month, with suggestions such as making sure not to scream if someone tries to rob you, it is reported.

The International Trade Union Confederation says that if conditions don’t improve, at least 4,000 migrants will die before kick-off