The World Cup 2014 schedule starts on Thursday and the tournament opens with Brazil and Croatia in the group stage and the match coverage will be on ESPN and WatchESPN online from the Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo and starts at 4 pm ET and the full coverage of all 32 nations comes on ESPN, ESPN2, ABC and online with live stream coverage from WatchESPN lasting until July.
Brazil hosts the tournament amid protests and controversy all through the country and they are one of the favorites along with Germany, Argentina, Italy and Spain and they should start off with a win against Croatia. The first match is on June 12 and that is the only game of the day to start the tournament and on Friday, June 13, Group A finishes with Mexico and Cameroon in Natal, while Spain matches up with the Netherlands and Chile plays Australia in Cuiaba.
The first weekend of the tournament has four games with Group C and Group D kicking off and one of the most anticipated matches of the entire competition comes with England taking on Italy at 6 pm ET from Manaus at the Amazon stadium and it will be on ESPN. Uruguay and Costa Rica play on ABC at 3 pm and that match comes after Colombia and Greece, while Ivory Coast and Japan play the late game at 9 pm ET. The Sunday schedule has Switzerland and Ecuador at 12 pm noon, while France and Honduras matchup on ABC at 3 pm ET. Argentina is a favorite in the tournament and they matchup with Bosnia-Herzegovina at 6 pm ET on ESPN.
Germany comes in as another team that's favored and they are the leaders in the so-called "Group of Death" in Group G with the United States, Portugal and Ghana. Cristiano Ronaldo is looking to come back healthy and that makes Portugal tough, while Ghana has knocked out the United States in the last two World Cups and are one of the tougher African teams. The US will need a miracle to get out of the group stage and if they can get at least a point out of their first game against Ghana, they will be in much better position to get to the knockout stage. The United States has to travel farther than any other team in the entire tournament and that makes the group stage an even harder hill to climb.
Check here for the World Cup 2014 schedule and live coverage from ESPN.
