Gary Meenaghan

Teams have often put two players on Argentina's Lionel Messi during the World Cup tournament, but Germany are not going to fall into the trap of focusing on one man. “This team is not just Messi and if you think that then you would be making a mistake,” manager Joachim Loew told reporters.

Gary Meenaghan files from Rio de Janeiro, which, he writes, 'may just be the busiest place on earth this weekend'.

As Brazil prepare for their final game of the tournament they hosted, the anticlimax known as the third-place play-off, The National's Gary Meenaghan looks at five positives for Brazil football to have come out of the 2014 World Cup.

'We hope Argentina and the Netherlands was an anomaly', writes Gary Meenaghan fron Sao Paulo, where Wednesday's semi-final proved subdued. Hopefully, he writes, 'the beautiful game will be present' in the World Cup final.

Gary Meenaghan talks with World Cup final-bound Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella, already wary of a Germany that, he says, 'are a very difficult hurdle to overcome'.

'A nation's dreams were destroyed in less time than it takes to boil an egg,' writes Gary Meenaghan from Belo Horizonte, witness to a historic Brazilian defeat on Tuesday night. 'It was painful to watch'.

In the aftermath of the country’s worst defeat in their 100-year football history, Scolari fully accepted the responsibility, conceding that as coach he is the only person who should be blamed for what proved a total mismatch.

Gary Meenaghan, our man in Brasilia, discovers anti-corruption graffiti profiling nine people whose names they believe are tainted because of several scandals rocking Fifa, the game’s governing body

Gary Meenaghan files from Brazil, where he surveys the Belo Horizonte scene before Germany and Brazil met in the World Cup semi-finals.

Willian rejects comparisons to host nation's injured star striker

Midfielder's return from suspension a dose of good news amid the hand-wringing over Neymar's absence

While Belgium coach Marc Wilmots was blunt in his opinion of winning Argentina on Saturday ('We were not impressed'), Gonzalo Higuain, 'cool, calm and collected' fired Argentina into the last-four.

If Angel Di Maria suffers the same fate as Neymar, writes Gary Meenaghan, 'the decision by Sabella to leave Tevez out of the squad' will likely be his great regret.

Instead of looking forward to a last-four tussle with Germany, all of Brazil was wondering how the national team was to cope without its prolific striker, Gary Meenaghan writes from Brasilia.