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#OnThisDay in 2014
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Tim Howard world record. On 1st July 2014, Howard was awarded man of the match, despite the United States losing 2–1 to Belgium after extra time in the round of 16. During the match, he broke the record for most saves in a World Cup match with 15. Keep up with the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ in Arabic! From the latest news to in-depth team profiles, exclusive interviews, ticketing information and more – follow it all in the host country. The 2018 FIFA World Cup was an international football tournament contested by men's national teams and took place between 14 June and 15 July 2018 in Russia. It was the 21st FIFA World Cup, a worldwide football tournament held once every four years.It was the eleventh time the championships had been held in Europe, and the first time they were held in Eastern Europe. Your complete 2018 FIFA World Cup team guide. Most minutes played: 2217 - Paolo Maldini, Italy (1990-2002). Most matches won: 17 - Miroslav Klose, Germany (2002-2014).
- Miroslav Klose broke Ronaldo's record on this day in 2014
- He did it in front of the Brazilian's eyes
- Klose set another World Cup milestone in 2014
The events that unfolded in Belo Horizonte’s Estadio Mineirao on 8 July 2014 were like no other in the history of the beautiful game. If it were a screenplay, it would have won an Oscar.
Decades from now, there will be football fans across the globe who can still remember exactly where they were on the evening Germany beat Brazil 7-1 in the semi-final of the 20th FIFA World Cup™. This remarkable, breathtaking encounter even broke new ground in the long and eventful history of the World Cup by becoming the heaviest semi-final defeat ever inflicted in the competition, earning the nickname Mineiraço (Shock of the Mineirao) among Brazilian fans.
The eventual champions’ journey to victory that evening began to gain momentum when Miroslav Klose scored his 16th World Cup goal to make it 2-0. In doing so, the striker surpassed the previous record held by Brazil’s Ronaldo, who was watching on from the stands, and added another important footnote to his country’s illustrious place in the history books. 'It’s an outstanding achievement, I’m delighted for him,' Germany coach Joachim Low said after the match.
The player
The man nicknamed 'Miro' began his professional career with Kaiserslautern in 1999 and made his international debut just a year later. After making a name for himself with 'Die Roten Teufel', Klose won the DFB League Cup with Werder Bremen and ended the season as the Bundesliga’s top scorer before moving to Bayern Munich and collecting two German championship titles, two DFB Cups, a DFB League Cup and a DFB Super Cup. In 2011, he signed for Lazio, where he added the Coppa Italia to his extensive collection of silverware.
The 38-year-old helped Germany to their fourth World Cup title at Brazil 2014, having previously finished as runner-up and second-leading marksman at Korea/Japan 2002. While he and his team-mates had to settle for third place on home turf four years later, Klose was awarded the adidas Golden Boot as the highest-scoring player at the tournament. He and Germany finished in third place once again in South Africa in 2010. The world-class striker also represented his country at UEFA EURO 2004, 2008 and 2012, even helping them to reach the final against Spain in 2008.
'Lifting the Trophy in Brazil was the fulfilment of a childhood dream for me. I cannot think of a better time to bring the international chapter of my career to a close.' In August 2014, Klose retired from international football with those words after winning 137 caps and scoring 71 goals for his country. He finally hung up his boots for good in November 2016.
The record
By scoring his 16th World Cup goal against A Seleção, Klose became the World Cup’s sole record scorer ahead of Ronaldo (15) and compatriot Gerd Muller (14). 'There’s no question that it’s something very special for me,” Klose said after the match. “You don’t experience things like today very often and it’s not easy to put in a performance like that in a World Cup semi-final.'
Klose’s grand total of 19 goals at major international tournaments is a record for a European player (Gerd Muller scored 18). He played a total of 24 World Cup matches, a total that also places him near the top of the all-time tournament appearances list ahead of Paolo Maldini (23). Only fellow countryman Lothar Matthaus (25) has stepped onto the pitch at the world’s biggest football tournament more often – although when it comes to knockout matches, Klose’s total of 14 games places him ahead of both Matthaus and Cafu.
This popular figure has never been comfortable in the spotlight – but on that remarkable, record-breaking evening in July 2014, accompanied by goalkeeping coach Andreas Kopke, he was the first to step back out onto the pitch to celebrate with the German fans. Counting down from five to one, he triggered a Mexican wave that travelled at least part of the way around the otherwise deserted Estadio Mineirao.
The Memories
'[Ronaldo] was an outstanding player. I play in Italy and everyone I've ever talked to there say that he was the best player that ever played in Italy. For me he was the most complete player ever. Obviously it must be bitter for him that he was in the stadium when I overtook him in the match against Brazil. Before he sent a message out 'Klose – welcome in the club of 15'. I can now send out this message: 'Miroslav Klose in the club of 16 and everyone's welcome to join'.'
Miroslav Klose
'First of all, congratulations to Miroslav Klose! He deserves all the credit for having it for having scored 16 World Cup goals. When he had equalled my record against Ghana, I had congratulated him through Twitter. I really don't have a problem with someone breaking my record.'
Ronaldo
''Miro' is incredible. To set the record and to do it in Brazil is a great performance. It really means a lot to all of us. This is a record. This is a record that could be beaten only by [Thomas] Mueller. We believe that he really deserves it. Because at his age, he is still playing at the highest possible level.'
Joachim Low
'Hats off to Klose. I highly respect the numbers he has achieved, but the truth is that a player who I consider the best after Maradona lost a record. I believe that Ronaldo was the best player of the last two decades.'
Jose Mourinho
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Klose stopped by the FIFA World Football Museum in Zurich in 2016 to relive his record-breaking tournament.
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- Bora Milutinovic turns 76 today
- Serbian coached Mexico, Costa Rica, USA, Nigeria and China PR at the World Cup
- He was the first coach to take four nations past the first round
Talk to Bora Milutinovic for one hour, or even one minute, and you’ll learn quickly about his passion for the people of the world and the game they hold most dear.
'It’s called the world’s game for a reason and my World Cup record is more than a record to me,' the Serbian told FIFA.com about taking five different national teams from three different continents to consecutive FIFA World Cups™ – a record unlikely ever to fall. 'This is my life and my great honour as a human being.'
The man
Bora, born Velibor Milutinovic, developed a passion for football early in life in the former Yugoslavia. In the city of Bajina Basta, in the western portion of modern-day Serbia, he was orphaned and left to go it alone in the post World War II chaos. He developed into a central midfielder of grace, known for his ability to control a game during his six years with Partizan Belgrade in the early 1960s.
Soon, a wanderlust took over Bora’s life. When he hung up his playing boots in 1976, he had swapped clubs seven times in ten years and moved from Yugoslavia to Switzerland to France and, eventually, Mexico.
Fifa World Cup Records Women
The record
His reputation as a tactician whose brand travelled well, without spoiling, first developed in Mexico and a five-year coaching stretch with UNAM Pumas in the late 1970s and early '80s. It led to his first World Cup gig. As coach of Mexico’s national team, it was Bora’s job to contend with the huge and unrealistic expectations as El Trihosted the World Cup for the second time in 1986.
In his side was a global superstar, Hugo Sanchez, and in the stands at the Azteca were fans who, despite a lack of success beyond the Concacaf zone, were expecting the world to be delivered to them by this wandering football romantic with a knack for mastering foreign tongues. He didn’t deliver the world, but after showing a firm hand and selecting a team few in Mexico saw virtue in, he led them to the quarter-finals, where they lost out only on penalties to eventual runners-up West Germany. It was the furthest Mexico had ever gone in a World Cup.
At Italy 1990, Milutinovic’s charge was to keep Costa Rica – then unknown minnows from the backwaters of Concacaf – from embarrassing themselves under the bright lights of the big stage. He did that and then some, fostering a great bond with the squad despite only having 90 days to prepare before the tournament. Wins over Scotland and Sweden saw the Los Ticos into the knockout rounds, an achievement beyond expectations back home.
That performance caught the attention of big neighbours to the north, USA, and Milutinovic was handed the reins of a side that had only just returned to the World Cup in 1990 after a 40-year stretch in the wilderness. The local press dubbed him 'The Miracle Worker' but there was little expected of the host side at the first World Cup organised in USA – aside from a big, glitzy party. Bora built a team capable of competing. And when they got to the second round, with a famous win over Colombia (a first victory for USA at the World Cup in 50 years) it was considered a huge feat.
The legend of Bora was building. He wasn’t afraid to cut loose old sacred cows. Here was a man who could squeeze blood from a stone. He wouldn’t just get you to the World Cup; he’d get you to the knockout stages – worth its weight in gold for many nations of the world. Milutinovic repeated the act in 1998, where he led a star-studded Nigeria to a first-place finish in their group that included a win over Spain, before going out at the first hurdle against Denmark in the knockout round.
The Serb’s final coaching foray at the World Cup was with debutants China PR in 2002. But, even for him – the man with the golden hand – it was a road too far to get the Asians into the knockout stages. Even still, he remains a hero in Chinese football circles for being the only man to bring the world’s most populous nation to the footballing mountaintop. There is even a statue of Milutinovic in Liaoning Province, surveying the landscape like a guardian.
The memories
'For me it all blends together into one great honour and one great experience that I can never forget. From Mexico to China, my memories are so deep and meaningful. There were always differences between the jobs and the different countries. The problems that players faced in Costa Rica in 1990 were not the same as the players faced in 2002 in China or in Nigeria when I was there. But the beauty of football is that it is the same – in a very meaningful way – all over the world. The game, for me and in my heart, is the same no matter where you go.
'I’ve coached everywhere! Football is the same everywhere, but the challenges to the players are different from place to place and time to time. But this I can say: when you have them on the field and you are the coach – the eyes are the same and what they try to do is the same. In that way, football is football everywhere.
'The first job, whether it’s the USA or Mexico, is to get the team confident. First you have to get them to believe. This was difficult in places like the USA and Mexico in those years, and Costa Rica and China too. It was my job to get the players to believe, and when the players believed then they would play like they believed and the people in the country, in the stands, would believe too. It was all part of a process that began with instilling a sense of belief in players. This is the ultimate challenge for a national team coach.
'When I am coaching in a country I feel almost like I become a citizen of that country. This was the same in Mexico and Nigeria and even China. I look closely at the traits of the people and what moves them and I try to respond to these things. Football is a lot more than just a ball and 22 guys running around a pitch, especially, at the international level. It’s about dreams and pride and a lot of different and important factors.
'But for me there is nothing like the World Cup. To bring a team to the ultimate – to that level – there’s no feeling like it in the world. Sometimes I think about it - I think about having brought so many teams to the World Cup, and just to have been involved in so many World Cups – and I can hardly even believe it. To me, it’s still a dream. It will always be a dream and I will always be grateful to have lived it.'
Bora Milutinovic
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