The World Cup 2014 soccer tournament is live on the radio with a stream from ESPN and the WatchESPN website from Brazil as Russia and South Korea play in Group H at 6 pm ET and the game comes from Cuiaba at the Arena Pantanal one of the new stadiums for the event and it’s the first game for the Russian and South Korean sides as they kick off their group play.
Russia comes into their first matchup with a chance to make a move in the group and this comes after Belgium won their opener and they are looking like the team to beat in the group. Algeria is skilled and so is the South Korea team and the matchup for Belgium will be on June 22 in Rio, while the finals matchup in group play for the team will be against Algeria on June 26. Fabio Capello comes in after his past performances and he is shaping up a team that missed out last time in the World Cup in South Africa and now he is hoping that this set in Brazil will be better.
Russia comes in after going 7-2-1 in play for qualifying and the team is making its ninth appearance in the World Cup and they are coming in after losing in the group stages back in 2002 and that was also with Belgium there. The team now was able to get out of their group and got past Portugal in qualifying and they were able to get in by one point. Portugal ended up in the group of death and started off with a 4-0 loss to Germany and now they are trying to get things back on track heading into their first matchup in Brazil.
Brazil and Mexico was the game on the schedule before Russia played and now those two teams are the first to play their second group matches, while Russia and South Korea are the last ones to play their first set. The group stage will continue this week and into next week before heading into the knockout stages and everyone is hoping to get in position to be part of the last 16 in the tournament. The United States won their opening game against Ghana and that was huge for the team as they try to advance and now they are atop of Group A along with Germany, who demolished Portugal in their matchup.
Spain came into the tournament with Brazil as one of the favorites, but they now have to find a way to recover against Chile, as they lost badly to the Netherlands. The Dutch are playing against Australia next and this comes after the team opened with a 5-1 win against the defending champions and those were all after Spain got the first goal. Robin Van Persie was excellent and he had an amazing header in that game and now the Dutch are in fine position to move along. The Russian side would love to get a result like that and are going up against South Korea.