The biggest sporting event on the planet, the FIFA World Cup (2010) is about to kick-off on Friday, June 11th with the host nation South Africa and Mexico playing the opener. The event promises to be a real footballing feast with some of the biggest names like Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo, and Kaka getting the headlines, as well as new names who will change the course of this competition.
We will of course all miss a lot of big names whose teams could not make it through the qualifiers like Andrei Arshavin, Peter Cech, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thomas Vermaelen, Edin Dzeko and Arda Turan.
And as we will be through with the knockout stage (http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/calendar.html) in the tournament on June 25th, the real "World Cup" will begin on June 26th with only the top sixteen teams left.
Enthusiasm for the "19th edition" is perhaps greatest in host nation South Africa, which is the first African country in World Cup history to host the event. The city of Johannesburg will host the World Cup final in it's impressive 95,000 capacity "Soccer City Stadium." In addition to South Africa, six African countries - Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria - qualified for this year's World Cup.
Italy enters as the defending Champion, with Spain, the last European Champion, and five-time former World Cup Champion Brazil considered to be early favorites to win the title. But the tournament seems to be wide open with other usual "suspects" from Europe and South America being joined by some serious challengers from Africa.
At this point my personal favorites are Brazil, Argentina, The Netherlands and Spain. And I believe that Brazil and The Netherlands will be the last two to stand.
Stay tuned!
"The first 90 minutes are the most important"
