The eagerly anticipated international football tournament kicks off in 2 weeks, in Johannesburg on June 11th, with 32 countries from around the world gathering in South Africa to compete for the title and trophy.
 |
| Soccer City Stadium will host the first and final matches |
6 African countries will be participating; 4 from West Africa - Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, in North Africa, Algeria and then, of course, the home country South Africa. South Africa beat out Morocco and Egypt in a bidding war to be the first African country ever to host the World Cup. The matches are spread over 9 host cities, including Cape Town and Durban, and the first and final matches will be hosted by Johannesburg at the Soccer City Stadium pictured above.
The month long tournament will end on the 11th of July with the new champions lifting the trophy which is theirs for 4 years until the next competition in Brazil 2014. The defending champions are Italy but Spain, Brazil (who have won more titles and more games than anyone else, and scored more goals in the history of this tournament) and Argentina are the favourites to win this one, the 19th FIFA World Cup.
Excitement is building as every country harbours hopes of the win and fans travel from across the globe to support their teams and share in the drama and passion that surrounds the beautiful game.
In their first game of the tournament at group stage, Nigeria (who dropped 1 place to 21 in the FIFA/ Coca Cola World Ranking to 21) face Argentina on the 12th June.
Ghana (ranked 32) face Serbia on the 13th, Cameroon (ranked 19th) are up against Japan on the 14th and Cote d'Ivoire (27th) meet Portugal on the 15th of June.
For more news and updates check out the dedicated news column on the right and follow us on @InTheKnowWA
The official website http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/ for fixtures, team profiles etc.
More from Wikipedia 2010 FIFA World Cup
Posts
For more news and updates check out the dedicated news column on the right and follow us on @InTheKnowWA
ReplyDelete