2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa
The start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup is almost near and all national soccer teams are now prepared for their respective fixtures in South Africa. And fans are expecting a very spectacular and star-studded opening ceremony at the newly renovated Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg. Among the performers are the Black Eyed Peas, R Kelly singing “I believe I can fly”, K’naan for the official anthem: Wavin’ Flag and Shakira for the Official Song.
For the games, the first set will be with Group A teams. South Africa v. Mexico, and Uruguay v. France on June 11 (Friday) and June 12 (Saturday) respectively.
Other teams will be playing at different South African Stadiums in different cities including Green Point Stadium of Cape Town, Durban Stadium, Ellis Park Stadium of Johannesburg, Free State Stadium of Mangaung/Bloemfontein, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Mbombela Stadium of Nelspruit, Peter Mokaba Stadium of Polokwane, Royal Bakofeng Stadium of Rustenburg, and Loftus Versfeld of Tshwane/Pretoria.
The Federacion Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) divided the teams into 8 groups through a formal seeding resulting to:
GROUP A (South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France).
GROUP B ( Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece).
GROUP C (England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia).
GROUP D (Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana)
GROUP E (Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon)
GROUP F (Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia)
GROUP G (Brazil, Korea, Côte d’Ivoire, Portugal)
GROUP H (Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile)
Zakumi will be the tournament’s official mascot. He is an anthropomorphised leopard with green hair. The name comes from “ZA” the international abbreviation for South Africa, and “kumi”, a word that means “ten” in various African languages. (courtesy of Wikipedia)
All these teams will be using a state of art Adidas Jabulani balls manufactured by FIFA’s official partner Adidas (video below courtesy of Youtube.com):
The video game inspired by the 2010 FIFA World Cup had also been released for gamers offering new skills for players (Tutorial video below courtesy of Youtube):
For more information about the 2010 FIFA World Cup, visit the following websites: ESPN Soccernet, and FIFA.com.
