We live up to our chosen moniker–the 3rd/4th place game is quintessential Cult Football.  We will be liveblogging, and we hope you will join us in the comments!

For a preview, we can do no better than the Guardian:

It’s the most pointless match in all football. An anti-climax like no other. A non-event played out by desperately disappointed, and possibly thunderingly depressed, men who know all too well their only chance of immortailty has gone, some kidding on they still care, others failing dismally to hide their displeasure. All the same, it’s still the World Cup, this, isn’t it. And with 62 matches down, there’s only two to go, after which we’ll be done for another four years. Sniff! Panic! So let’s enjoy it while it lasts, eh?

Now then, this is the first repeat fixture in third-place-final history. Uruguay played off against West Germany in 1970, the Germans winning 1-0 through a goal from Wolfgang Overath. The most interesting thing about that game seems to be the crowd: the official attendance for the match – staged on the Azteca Stadium pitch the day before the World Cup final was played there – was 104,403, though some reports have the figure as low as 32,000. Eh? Anyway, if you look at the advertising hoardings, they’re hawking Jagermeister, a deliciousapres ski nippy sweetie for sure, but surely not the ideal isotonic refresher for a Mexico City basking in temperatures of Silly°C? Maybe everyone with a ticket was home in bed nursing one behind the eyes.

Tonight, all eyes not affected by syrupy booze will be on Miroslav Klose (if he plays) and Diego Forlan. Both chaps are on four goals and chasing the Golden Boot, one behind David Villa and Wesley Sneijder, who have five apiece. Klose is also after the all-time cumulative finals record of The Ronaldo & Fifa Experience; he’s one behind on 14, having scored the same amount of goals but not been handed a free one against China in 2002.

Will they do it? Well, the third-place final has decided legacies in the past. Davor Suker (1998), Toto Schillaci (1990) and Leonidas (1938) have scored in the match to secure Golden Boots. Other tournament top scorers, such as Eusebio and Grzegorz Lato, have merely topped up their tallies; Just Fontaine’s four for France in a 6-3 win over West Germany in 1958 sealed a never-to-be-beaten single-tournament tally of 13.

[…]

So, then. Pointless? An anti-climax? A non-event? Oh I don’t think so.

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Starting lineups:

Uruguay: 1-Fernando Muslera; 2-Diego Lugano, 3-Diego Godin, 4-Jorge Fucile, 16-Maximiliano Pereira, 15-Diego Perez, 17-Egidio Arevalo, 7-Edinson Cavani, 22-Martin Caceres, 9-Luis Suarez, 10-Diego Forlan.

Germany: 22-Hans-Joerg Butt; 2-Marcell Jansen, 3-Arne Friedrich, 17-Per Mertesacker, 20-Jerome Boateng, 13-Thomas Mueller, 4-Dennis Aogo, 6-Sami Khedira, 7-Bastian Schweinsteiger, 19-Cacau, 8-Mesut Ozil.