The Brazilian team won the bronze medal, but Rivaldo was made the scape-goat for Brazil's semi-final defeat to Nigeria, and was excluded from the Brazilian national team by national team manager Mario Zagallo.

Keene brought Victor Korchnoi and Garry Kasparov together for their 1983 Candidates ' semi-final match in London as part of the 1984 World Championship cycle ; the semi-final match between Vasily Smyslov and Zoltán Ribli was also played at the same site.

He performed at Croke Park during half-time in the 2012 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final between Cork and Donegal.

He had begun play in the 1941 semi-final of the Soviet Championship, but this event was cancelled as war began.

In 1988 he defeated John Campbell, Stephen Hendry and Tony Knowles to reach his fourth World Championship semi-final.

White put this controversy behind him and overcame David Roe and John Parrott to reach his tenth World Championship semi-final.

After beating Brentford in the semi-final with an aggregate score of 3 – 1, Sturrock took Wednesday to the play-off final at the Millennium Stadium and beat Hartlepool United 4 – 2 after extra-time, winning promotion to the Championship.

At the World Championship, he defeated Griffiths 13 – 5 in the quarter-final, and White 16 – 11 in the semi-final.

However, his four year unbeaten run at the UK Championship came to an end in December with a 3 – 9 semi-final loss to Hendry.

In the 1990 World Championship, Davis was denied an eighth consecutive appearance in the final by Jimmy White, who won their semi-final 16 – 14.

After this Hankey went through a fairly barren spell at the Lakeside and did not reach another major final or World Championship semi-final until his victory in the 2009 BDO World Championships.

Widnes were defeated in the Championship semi-final and Hull waited at Headingley as Huddersfield strove for a clean sweep of silverware.

The most famous instance of this was the 1968 European Football Championship semi-final between Italy and the Soviet Union, which finished 0-0 after extra time.

Examples include Italy's win over the USSR in the semi-final of the 1968 European Championship ( the final, also drawn, went to a replay ).

On 12 June 2011 Carrick hosted the Connacht Championship semi-final between Leitrim GAA and Roscommon GAA.

The two semi-final winners met in the MISL Championship Final.

The place in the semi-final is Sweden's best result in a European Championship to date.

However in the next ranking event, the Bahrain Championship, he reached the semi-final, but he lost 4 – 6 to Matthew Stevens.

Johnson had a poor season as world champion, reaching only one semi-final, but he defied expectations at the 1987 World Championship and reached the final again, again meeting Davis but this time losing 18 – 14.

Davis died two months after collapsing while watching his brother play Perrie Mans in the 1978 World Snooker Championship semi-final.

Higgins and Williams met in the Grand Prix final in 1999, where Higgins came from 2 – 6 down to claim a 9 – 8 victory ; the World Championship semi-final in 2000, where Higgins was defeated 15 – 17 after surrendering a 14 – 10 advantage in the final session ; and the UK Championship final in 2000 – Higgins winning by a margin of 10 – 4 to earn his second UK title.

His break of 122 in the 29th frame of his semi-final against Maguire, on recovering from a deficit of 10 – 14 in the final session to prevail 17 – 15, was the 1, 000th century to be made at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield since the World Championship was first staged there in 1977.

In the 2009 / 10 season, as reigning World Champion, he lost 5 – 6 on the black ball to Neil Robertson in the semi-final of the Grand Prix ; and 8 – 10 to Ding Junhui in the final of the UK Championship, after surviving a comeback by Ronnie O ' Sullivan in the semi-final when leading 8 – 2, to advance 9 – 8 the previous evening.

On 16 April 1963, an astonishing game at Filbert Street against Manchester United, which saw both Ken Keyworth and Denis Law score a hat-trick each, ended in a 4 – 3 victory for Leicester, which meant Leicester sat top of the First Division and 11 days later Banks put in one of the performances of his career to keep out Liverpool as Leicester beat them 1 – 0 in the FA Cup semi-final despite being completely outplayed all game.

He played in all four of England's matches and was booked in the semi-final against the Netherlands, which meant he would have missed the final.

Wilson continued to play as Arsenal's keeper through the early 1970s, although an injury late on in the 1972 FA Cup semi-final against Stoke City meant he missed Arsenal's 1972 FA Cup Final loss to Leeds United and much of the 1972-73 season.

The increased interest in participating in Eurovision meant that, with the exception of hosts Norway, all other countries had to present their song in an audio only semi-final held in late March.

This meant that they had to win their last game against the Bulls to claim a home semi-final.

The injury meant Carvalho missed the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Liverpool.

A Scott Chaplain last minute winner against Elgin City in the semi-final and penalties win over Stranraer in the final meant that Rovers had gone up, and stayed up, for the first time since the 1930s.

An Andy Goode penalty gave them the lead and a drop goal for each team in the last ten minutes ( in which Lamb also missed a penalty ) meant that the Leicester Tigers became the first team in premiership history to win a semi-final away from home, and once again left Gloucester's fans heart-broken.

They were not pre-qualified for the final, due to Ireland's result from the 2004 contest, which meant they took part in the semi-final on 19 May 2005.

The success from last year continued, Romania received another top 10 place in Riga, Nicola and her song " Don't Break My Heart " just got into the top 10 by receiving a total of 73 points, which meant that Romania would compete in the final in 2004, even without needing to compete in the semi-final.

In 2004, Romania sent Sanda to compete for the country with the song " I Admit ", Romania did not managed to receive their third top 10 in a row, after a disappointing 18th place with only 18 points, which meant this time, that Romania would have to compete in the semi-final of 2005 in order to qualify to the final.

In 2005, Romania sent Luminița Anghel and Sistem in order to help the country back to the final, and as hoped they succeeded, but not only that, Romania also got their first top 3 place in the contest by ending on third place with a total of 158 points, only beaten by Greece and Malta in the final, but at the semi-final, 2 days earlier, Romania ended on first place, with a total amount of 235 points, which meant they won the semi-final with a margin of 28 points in front of neighbouring country Moldova.

Romania continued the good streak by sending Mihai Trăistariu and his Italian named song " Tornerò " to Athens, Romania was also one of the hot favourites to take the gold, and being the next host country, but failed after being beaten by countries as Finland, Russia and Bosnia & Herzegovina in the final, which all of them had qualified to the final from the semi-final 2 days earlier, which meant that Romania ended on 4th place with 172 points, which is the highest amount of points Romania has ever received in a final, the fourth place also meant that Romania was qualified for the final in Helsinki.

They managed to qualify for the final by ending on 4th place in the semi-final, but in the final they even got a better result ending on the third place which meant they had equalised Romania ’ s best result from 2005, with a total of 162 points, only 8 points away from second place, which was given to Turkey.

Queens followed this with a 4 – 3 win against Aberdeen in the semi-final, which meant that Chisholm had guided Queens to their first ever Scottish Cup Final appearance.

This also meant that finals were no longer held, but it has been announced that a replacement will be held in the form of knockout semi-final and final stages.

Injury also meant that he missed the final game of the season, and the first leg of the play-off semi-final against Brighton and Hove Albion-nevertheless, he was offered a new two year contract in May 2004, which he signed.

The only major competitive match to be decided by a silver goal was the semi-final match of Euro 2004 between Greece and the Czech Republic, when Traianos Dellas scored for Greece after a corner kick in the last two seconds of the first period of extra time.

Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8 / 207 against the West Indies.

In 1998 / 99, the competition's final year, SC Heerenveen of the Netherlands entered the CWC despite only reaching the semi-final of the previous season's Dutch Cup.

Pelé scored the only goal of their quarter-final match against Wales, and they beat France 5 – 2 in the semi-final.

The only highlight of the campaign was reaching the semi-final of the Coppa Italia, beating Lumezzane in the round of 16, Milan in the quarter-finals, and eventually losing 2 – 1 to Roma on aggregate.

In the 1980 semi-final, the youngest competitor, Ted Stockton, ( a taxi driver, aged 25 ) started 56 seconds after the only female semi finalist who was 33.

For the first and only time a match was decided on a coin toss ( the semi-final against the Soviet Union ) and the final went to a replay, after the match against Yugoslavia finished 1 – 1.

Hence, only two matches were played, with Egypt being crowned as the first continental champion after defeating hosts Sudan in the semi-final and Ethiopia in the final.

After losing to Billie-Jean King at Wimbledon 1973 at the semi-final stage, Goolagong only suffered one defeat prior to the final until Wimbledon 1978, when she lost in the semi-final to Martina Navratilova.

Australia won the tournament, becoming the first nation to do so twice and also to date the only team ever to win after having to qualify for the tournament, with a 35 – 12 triumph over France, who were unable to repeat their semi-final victory over pre-tournament favourites New Zealand.

The Jets would win only one other playoff series, in 1987 ( defeating Calgary in the division semi-final before losing to Edmonton in the division final ).

Simon Curtis achieved this distinction when he answered only one question correctly on " The Films of Jim Carrey " during a semi-final edition of the regular competition in October 2006 ( he got 8 points in the General Knowledge round ).

The Liverpool website goes further than that by saying: "( Liverpool were ) only denied at the semi-final stage due to a dishonest referee in Milan ".

In the semi-final episode, Doug manages to get them back together so that he can have a band perform at the Spring Fling A-Ding dance, but the reunion is only brief, due to fighting over a banana.

The 1912 – 13 season saw them win promotion to the First Division once more, as well as reaching the FA Cup semi-final, only to lose to Sunderland.

The years through to the outbreak of the Second World War were characterised by uninspiring league finishes, broken only by an FA Cup semi-final appearance in 1934 – 35 and the arrival ( and equally swift departure ) of Tommy Lawton.

The following season Burnley played in European competition for the first time beating Reims and losing to Hamburger SV, lost in an FA Cup semi-final and finished fourth in the league and the highlights of the 1961 – 62 season were finishing second in the league and a run to The FA Cup Final, where a Jimmy Robson goal was Burnley's only reply to 3 from Spurs.

New Zealand's 49-6 semi-final dispatch of England, coupled with Australia only hitting the lead in their semi-final against Wales with 23 minutes remaining, had New Zealand installed as favourites in some quarters.

However, Whittock twice won the Wales heat of Brain of Britain ( on BBC Radio 4 ) and in the 1994 semi-final was only narrowly beaten into runner-up spot.

In the 1997 semi-final, he could only manage third place and the heat was easily won by quiz legend Daphne Fowler.

He was unlucky to be drawn against eventual winner Joaquim Cruz in each of his two heats and also the semi-final, in which he only narrowly qualified for the final, lunging for the finish in 4th place and appearing to collapse over the line.

The preliminary competition is further split into two parts: preliminary rounds and a semi-final or tiebreaker round, which is used only in the event of a tie at the end of the preliminary rounds.