Great graphics, some manly chest-thumping and it looks like Brazil's golden boy may need to work on his spot kicks against Colombia...
Twitter world holds it's breath
Data from Twitter highlights how activity ebbs and flows dramatically during penalty shoot-outs, with users glued to the game and launching a storm of tweets as soon as the shot is hit. We've all done it. We watch with tablet, phone or laptop in hand, getting ready to react to the penalty. As soon as it's hit, the flurry, the flood, the tsunami of tweets reaches a frenzied crescendo.
Twitter have now released a graphic taken during the Brazil v Chile penalty shoot-out which brilliantly illustrates this.
Twitter published the findings on Thursday in a blog post in which it announced that the "highest single-minute activity" of the World Cup so far reached 388,985 tweets per minute on Saturday — right after the penalty kick that put Brazil over Chile and into the next round. You're welcome stat fans.
Hat-tip to Mashable
French Wolves of Wall Street
The French seem to be enjoying their time out in Brazil and sure why wouldn't they? After the debacle of their last World Cup in South Africa, Didier Deschamps deserves serious kudos for bringing smiles, harmony and a great ambience to the French camp.
During a training session yesterday in Brazil, the French lads had a light moment and re-enacted a scene from the excellent Wolf of Wall Street:
http://youtu.be/v6FDKydyZKE
Will they be beating their chests proudly after the clash with Germany later though?
Hat-tip to Goal
Colombia won't fear a penalty from Neymar
The matches are getting tighter out in Brazil, none more tight than Brazil's thrilling penalty shoot-out win against Chile in the previous round. The hosts take on Colombia tonight in Fortaleza and, if it does go the distance and we end up with another nail biting penalty shoot-out, Neymar will hope his kick is a bit better than the last time he took a penalty against Colombia.
Just look at how ridiculously bad this is:
http://youtu.be/349L3w_T2u8
With the match tied at 1-1 and with 10 minutes to go, up stepped the Brazilian golden boy to take it. He hits the ball so far over the bar, it goes beyond row Z. He was obviously mortified and had that little look at the penalty spot as if to imply that it was the cause of the shank. Even the Colombian goalkeeper had sympathy for Neymar and went to console him. We probably won't be witnessing the same sort of compassion this evening.
