The 2010 World Cup champions were crowned overnight, and with 90-minutes unable to separate Spain and the Netherlands, the final went into extra time and saw the Spanish come out on top with a 1-0 win.
While the Netherlands preferred to…
After four years of waiting, qualifying and now three weeks of the finals, the 2010 World Cup is simply a matter of hours away from deciding which nation will lift the trophy as the new World Champions.
Our ‘Tip Of The…
The line up of the 2010 World Cup final has been decided, with the second semi final going ahead last night in Durban, and saw Spain grab the last spot.
The 2008 European Championships final, overcame Germany by a single goal…
The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by South Africa for the first time as the 19th competition for the soccer dominancy of the world begins. After this, Oceania Football Confederation will be the only federation never to have hosted the world cup.
South Africa has been given the opportunity to host the 2010 FIFA world cup as a rotation policy for the world cup hosting nations, and the 2014 tournament is scheduled to go ahead in Brazil. After a long struggle the African nations have got the opportunity to bid for the world cup hosting.
Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia were the competitor bidders in hosting the world cup against South Africa with the winning nation securing 14 votes to Egypt’s 10.
The tournament will see 32 teams competing in the finals between June 11, 2010 and July 11, 2010. With the novelty of being the hosts, South Africa has qualified automatically for the finals but for the first time since 1934 they will also be participating in the qualifiers. The qualification matches are also the determining factor for the participants of the 2010 African Nations Cup, for which South Africa has to qualify. However, even if they are unsuccessful in the qualifying campaign they will not lose their spot in the finals of the 2010 World Cup.
Europe has been given 13 of the 32 places in the tournament, with the nine group winners secured of a place in the finals, while the top eight runner ups battle it out for thr four remainging places.
South America is receiving four qualifying places with the 5th team from the CONMEBOL qualifying section competing against the fourth placed CONCACAF team (North American section). The African section is given six places including the automatic place of South Africa. The top four Asian teams get places and one team that will be the winner between the fifth Asian team and the leading Oceania qualifier will take the fifth place.
Nine venues have been selected for the tournament around South Africa, with the capacity for the Royal Bafokeng Stadium being 42,000 and a maximum capacity of 104,000 at the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg – where the first and final matches will be held.
The majority of the stadiums are to be upgraded or reconstructed prior to the 2010 World Cup kicking off, with the main worry being that is that they won’t be completed in time, with FIFA even threatening to move the venue if assurance is not given to complete the work in time.
The progresses towards building of stadiums have been criticized publicly and threat has been given to the South African Authorities that if the venues are not built in time the venue will be shifted. Even though FIFA has announced publicly that only in the event of natural disaster the venue will move, rumors continue to circulate about possible intentions. Sepp Blatter has admitted that a contingency plan is in place, but stressed that such a plan also existed for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
