Once every four years the world stops for a moment and focus’ its attention on soccer. The World Cup, the #1 most watched sporting event in the world, will officially kick off on Thursday June 12, 2014 in Brazil to the delight of hundreds of millions of soccer fans.

For those who don’t know a lot about soccer, the World Cup is a tournament featuring thirty-two senior men’s national teams. The World Cup has been held every four years since 1930, excluding 1942 and 1946 during World War II.

The thirty-two teams are placed in eight groups of four to start with. They will each play each team in their group once. After that ends the two teams with the highest point totals move on (you get three points for a win and one point for a tie). The last sixteen teams will then play in the knock-out stage until it is whittled down to two teams. On July 13, 2014 the last two teams will play in the World Cup final, which will be seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The United States national team has qualified for every World Cup since 1990. While the U.S. will be an exciting team to watch they are not considered a favorite this year. Of local interest this year’s team does include Kansas’ first World Cup soccer player, Matt Besler. Besler plays his club soccer for Sporting Kansas City. So definitely root for him. The favorites for this year’s World Cup are the host nation Brazil, Spain, and Germany.

Please come watch some World Cup soccer with us here at your library! We will be showing all the group games for the United States and two of Mexico’s group games. Our schedule is:

Marvin Auditorium-101A
Monday June 16- United States vs. Ghana- 5:00 pm-7:00 pm
Tuesday June 17- Mexico vs. Brazil- 2:00 pm-4:00 pm
Sunday June 22- United States vs. Portugal- 5:00 pm-7:00 pm

Edge-Teen Room
Monday June 23- Mexico vs. Croatia- 3:00 pm-5:00 pm
Thursday June 26- United States vs. Germany- 11:00 am- 1:00 pm