The 32 teams participating at next year's FIFA World Cup finals discovered their fate this evening when the Final Draw for South Africa 2010 took place in Cape Town.
An estimated global television audience of 200 million joined the 2,000 invited guests in the Draw Hall in watching the colourful and entertaining ceremony unfold. With African sporting stars such as athlete Haile Gebreselassie, rugby player John Smit, cricketer Makhaya Ntini, and footballers Matthew Booth and Simphiwe Dludlu assisting with the draw, along with England icon David Beckham, it was always going to be an exhilarating evening, but the undoubted centrepiece came when the eight groups were revealed.
While South Africans smiled upon learning that the host nation's Opening Match on 11 June would be played against Mexico at Soccer City, it was the outcome of Group D which caused the biggest stir. Germany, Australia, Serbia and Ghana will battle it out for the two qualifying places for the Round of 16, meaning that two nations with a proud footballing heritage will have to depart the tournament early.
The early stages of the draw brought a very interesting match-up as England were paired together with USA in a match which will take place in Rustenburg on Saturday 12 June, which brought back memories of the clash at Brazil 1950, which USA won 1-0. However, Fabio Capello and Bob Bradley avoided a nightmare group, with Algeria and Slovenia also coming out of the hat.
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 DPR, Côte d'Ivoire, Portugal Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile
Although the dates and locations of each of the 48 matches are known for the group-stage games, the kick-off times will be announced shortly, upon conclusion of a meeting between FIFA, the Local Organising Committee and broadcasters.
France qualified for its fourth consecutive World Cup when officials missed an obvious hand ball by Thierry Henry that led to William Gallas' overtime goal in a 1-1 tie against Ireland on Wednesday night.
Greece, Slovenia, Portugal, Algeria, Uruguay also advanced to next year's tournament Wednesday on the final day of qualifying, completing the field next year in South Africa .
The 32 nations will be drawn into eight groups on Dec. 4 in Cape Town, and the first World Cup on the African continent opens June 11.
With help from Swedish referee Martin Hansson, who failed to call the hand ball, France avoided a penalty-kicks shootout at Saint-Denis, outside Paris, and won the home-and-home, total-goals playoff 2-1. The French had come away with a 1-0 victory in Dublin last Saturday.
The game appeared headed to penalty kicks when Florent Malouda sent a free kick to Henry at the post to the right of goalkeeper Shay Given in the 103rd minute. Henry got between defender Paul McShane and Given, stopped the ball with his left hand, then used his hand again and poked the ball with his outstretched right foot in front of the net.
"He almost caught it and walked into the net with it," said Robbie Keane, who had put the Irish ahead in the 33rd minute.
Gallas headed the ball into the net from a yard as Irish players raised their hands in protest at Hansson.
Soccer does not allow officials to use video replay, although the assistant referees can point out infractions to the referee.
"I will be honest, it was a hand ball. But I'm not the ref," Henry said. "I played it. The ref allowed it. That's a question you should ask him."
Ireland coach Giovanni Trapattoni was livid and had to be calmed by officials. Irish fans - about 8,000 in one section behind the goal - chanted "Cheat! Cheat!" at Henry.
"I'm not only disappointed tonight, I'm also very sad," Trapattoni said. "The referee should have asked Henry, I'm sure he would have admitted there was a hand ball."
In the other European playoffs, Greece won 1-0 at Ukraine on Dimitrios Salpigidis' 31st-minute goal for a 2-1 aggregate victory; Slovenia upset visiting Russia 1-0 behind Zlatko Dedic's 44th-minute goal to leave the aggregate tied 2-2 and advance on away goals; and Portugal won 1-0 at Bosnia-Herzegovina on Raul Meireles' 56th minute for a 2-0 aggregate win that gave FIFA player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo a World Cup trip.
Algeria qualified for its first World Cup since 1986, beating Egypt 1-0 in a tiebreaker playoff at Khartoum, Sudan, on Antar Yahya's goal in the 39th minute. Yahya scored with a right-footed volley that beat goalkeeper Essam El Hadary.
Uruguay earned the final berth for next year's World Cup, tying visiting Costa Rica 1-1 to win on 2-1 aggregate. Sebastian Abreu scored for Uruguay on a header in the 70th minute, but Walter Centeno tied the score on a 16-yard shot in the 74th.
Costa Rica will miss the World Cup for the first time since 1998. The Ticos were seconds from qualifying last month when they allowed an injury time goal in a 2-2 tie against the United States, dropping them behind Honduras into fourth place in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Egypt, whose only World Cup appearances were in 1934 and 1990, forced its playoff by beating Algeria 2-0 with an injury-time goal in Cairo last Saturday that left the Pharaohs even atop Africa Group C and set off several violent outbursts.
The embassy and sites of Egyptian businesses such as Egypt Air and telecom group Orascom were attacked on Saturday. Several Algerian players had been injured before the match in Cairo as Egypt fans pelted Algeria's team bus with rocks.
Security was stepped up near the Egyptian Embassy in the Algerian capital, Algiers, but there were no signs of violence. The streets of Algiers quickly filled with celebrating citizens, some setting off fireworks. Traffic came to a standstill in the centre of town.
Women in hijabs, or veils, were seen brandishing the Algerian flag, a rare site in the North African nation.
The jubilant atmosphere crossed the Mediterranean to Marseille and Paris, where there are large Algerian populations. Streams of youths hanging from cars, honking horns and brandishing the Algerian flag made victory laps down Paris' Champs-Elysees.
In Gelsenkirchen, Lukas Podolski scored his second goal of the match in injury time for a 2-2 exhibition tie against Ivory Coast in Germany's first game since goalkeeper Robert Enke committed suicide last week.
In other exhibition games, the United States allowed three second-half goals in a 3-1 loss at Denmark; Giorgio Chiellini scored on a header following a corner kick in the 28th minute to give defending World Cup champion Italy a 1-0 victory over visiting Sweden; and European champion Spain won 5-1 at Austria on two goals by David Villa and one each by Cesc Fabregas, Daniel Guiza and Pablo Hernandez.
At Donetsk, Salpigidis scored for Greece, which will be making its second World Cup appearance after going 0-3 at the 1994 tournament in the United States. Salpigidis took a through pass from Georgios Samaras and put the ball in for his second international goal in 29 appearances.
"We've heard a lot of criticism during the qualifiers and this is an answer to our critics," Salpigidis said. "We never stopped believing in ourselves."
At Maribor, Dedic took a 25-yard pass from Valter Birsa and slotted the ball to the left corner past goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev. The difference in the playoff, a rare blemish on the career record of Russia coach Guus Hiddink, was Nejc Pecnik's 87th-minute goal in Slovenia's 2-1 loss at Moscow last Saturday.
Slovenia, which gained independence in 1991, went 0-3 at the 2002 World Cup.
"My guys became immortal!" Slovenia coach Matjaz Kek said.
Fans waited to find out whether Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor would fulfil his promise to clean players' boots if they qualified. Pahor told Slovenian television that he followed through.
"I didn't do it thoroughly, but enough for the trip to South Africa," he told Slovenian television.
At Zenica, Nani's pass found Meireles, who scored on a low shot in the 56th minute. Portugal, which lost to France in the 2006 World Cup semifinals advanced despite not having Ronaldo, sidelined with an ankle injury.
"It is difficult to comfort the boys. They are devastated," Bosnia coach Miroslav Blazevic said.
Japan has become the first country to qualify for football's 2010 World Cup, clinching its place with a 1-0 win away at Uzbekistan on Saturday.
A goal in the ninth minute by Shinji Okazaki proved enough for Japan to secure a fourth straight World Cup berth, qualifying with two games to spare.
Hosts South Africa are automatically in the event, while Australia can qualify with a win or draw away at Qatar later Saturday.
Uzbekistan must win its final qualifier and rely on Bahrain losing its two remaining matches if it is to have a chance of progressing.
Australia can join its Asia Group 1 rival in the 32-team finals with at least a draw in its match against Qatar later.
Coach Takeshi Okada, who guided Japan to its first World Cup in 1998, repeated the feat. Shinji Okazaki scored the game’s only goal after nine minutes.
That lifted Japan atop the group with 14 points to Australia’s 13, with Bahrain and Qatar next on seven.
In today’s Group 2 matches, Iran held North Korea to a goalless draw in Pyongyang. The point lifts North Korea to 11 points, level with leader South Korea and a point ahead of Saudi Arabia. Iran has seven points.
The two third-place finishers enter a playoff series, with the winner facing Oceania’s top team in another playoff for a World Cup spot. South Africa has an automatic berth as host.
The Netherlands can become the first European side to clinch a place at the 2010 World Cup on Saturday.
While England and Denmark are among the other teams able to move closer to a spot in South Africa, the Dutch can get there with two games remaining with victory at Iceland.
The Netherlands has almost a full-strength side for the game in Reykjavik, one of 14 qualifiers in Europe on Saturday.
Only midfielders Wesley Sneijder and Ibrahim Afellay are missing for the Group 9 leaders, who have won all five of their qualifiers and are eight points clear of second-place Scotland.
"We want to grab this first chance," captain Giovanni van Bronckhorst said. "We've never been able to qualify so quickly for a tournament.
"Now we have to make sure we take the chance immediately. It's been a long season, but we all want to qualify for the World Cup, so we must beat Iceland."
The Netherlands beat Iceland 2-0 in Rotterdam last year through goals by Joris Mathijsen and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
The Dutch host Norway four days after the Iceland match in the next round of qualifying and that game could now be a celebration.
Group 6 leader England also has maximum points ahead of its next two qualifiers but may still have to wait even if it wins at Kazakhstan on Saturday and then against visiting Andorra on Wednesday.
"We want the job done as soon as possible," England midfielder Steven Gerrard said. "With all due respect to Kazakhstan and Andorra, these are games we should win, so we need to approach them with the right attitude.
"If we win these two games, we will be three points away from qualification with three games to play and that puts us basically in the driving seat."
England is without injured players David James, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and Shaun Wright-Phillips but should still stretch its five-point lead over second-place Croatia.
Croatia hosts Ukraine on Saturday but is idle Wednesday.
Croatia will be relying on Mladen Petric for goals because striker Eduardo da Silva is out injured.
"It would be stupid to say that we're the same team with or without Eduardo," said captain Darijo Drna, who plays in Ukraine for UEFA Cup winner Shakhtar Donetsk. "They can surprise anyone. But we can't ignore the fact that we're a better team."
Group 1 co-leader Denmark can almost end the qualification chances of Sweden and take greater control of its own fate if it beats its Scandinavian rival in the teams' 100th meeting.
Sweden could wind up 10 points behind Denmark with five games to play if it loses.
Denmark has refreshed its experienced squad with newcomers, Kristian Bak Nielsen, Simon Kjaer and Jakob Poulsen, while coach Morten Olsen also picked Jesper Groenkjaer after an 18-month absence from the national squad because of injury.
But Groenkjaer and Liverpool defender Daniel Agger pulled out of training Wednesday. Groenkjaer has a sore knee and Agger a back problem which could mean he won't play on Saturday, according to team doctor Soren Kaalund.
Like Sweden, Portugal must win on Saturday to stay in contention in Group 1.
Portugal must snap a four-game winless streak in qualifying at Albania after taking six points from five games - seven fewer than Denmark and Hungary.
"This game is not about Albania; it's about Portugal, about us playing the good football we know we can play," Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz said. "We have to make that happen."
Albania coach Josip Kuze, who replaced Ari Haan last month, said he'd be happy with a draw and anticipated head-on attack from Portugal.
"They'll be twice as motivated as us," said Kuze, who will make his debut against the Portuguese. "I know that Portugal will press hard from the start, attacking and doing everything they can for a good result."
Slovakia will probably take top spot in Group 3 when it hosts last-place San Marino, with current leader Northern Ireland in friendly action at World Cup holder Italy.
The home team could face a hostile crowd in Pisa because local fans are upset over their club's relegation to the third division.
They have announced that they do not want Italy to play in their town in such a difficult moment.
"I understand the disappointment of the Pisan fans. But we have an agreement and the national team will play in Pisa," coach Marcello Lippi said. "I hope that good sense prevails at the stadium."
Lippi has called up an experimental squad for the friendly.
Italy's friendly could give Ireland the chance to go top in Group 8 when it plays at Bulgaria.
Ireland captain Robbie Keane and goalkeeper Shay Given missed training early in the week but should be fit, but Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson has been ruled out because of a groin injury.
U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown teamed up with David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and other English soccer stars on Monday to launch England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
The United States, Russia, Indonesia, Australia, Mexico and Japan are also entering bids, and Spain and Portugal and the Netherlands and Belgium may make joint bids.
FIFA's executive committee will choose the host in December 2010.
"If we can secure the football World Cup in England in 2018, it will be the greatest sporting decade our country has ever seen," said Brown, who was joined by Beckham, Rooney and members of England's 1966 World Cup championship team to promote England's bid at the ceremony Monday at Wembley Stadium.
London is set to host the 2012 Olympic Games, the 2014 Commonwealth Games will happen in Glasgow, and England has also bid to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup and the Cricket World Cup in 2019.
England hasn't played host to the World Cup since winning it in 1966. The country bid for the 2006 World Cup but it was a flop that saw England win only five votes.
"I am proud to support, encourage and advocate the official launch of the England 2018 bid," Brown said. "I do so as a football fan, as someone who watches football all the time, and I believe it is right for England to host the World Cup. Building on the success of Euro '96, we have the stadiums, the infrastructure to host the greatest football tournament in the world."
Beckham, who is currently on loan to AC Milan by the Los Angeles Galaxy, was part of London's campaign for the 2012 Olympics.
"I've played with some of the biggest and best [players] in the world and all they talk about is the passion and atmosphere that is shown at England games and games against teams from England," Beckham said.
"We, as a country, are always ready for big competitions. If someone was to say next week we'll stage a tournament in England, I don't think there are many other countries who would be ready to facilitate that."
Today marks 400 days to go until the kick off of the 2010 FIFA World Cup here in sunny South Africa. That means you have just 400 days left to get your tickets to the matches. Not that you’d want to wait too long, as demand is high. Tickets:
FIFA have stated that the second ticketing phase, which started just two days ago, and will make 100 000 tickets available, has already received 185 000 applications (100 000 for Individual Match Tickets, and 85 000 for Team Specific Ticket Series). These applications were made within eight hours of the second ticketing phase starting.
Ticket sales for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup have also received a quick boost: within the first twenty-four hours of all four ticketing centres being opened, as reported last week, approximately 18 000 tickets were sold. As expected by FIFA, this “over the counter” method of purchasing tickets has proved to be the most popular way for fans. This brings the total number of tickets sold for the event to roughly 340 000, leaving 300 000 still available. Stadiums:
FIFA Communications Director Hans Klaus recently gave a glowing update report about South Africa’s progress regarding both the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Speaking during the ongoing International Sports Press Association (AIPS) congress, Klaus said he was confident that South Africa would deliver to expectations. He emphasised that at this stage there should be no question about the stadiums’ readiness as South Africa was ahead of schedule.
Making these remarks after viewing a video clip of South Africa’s preparations, Klaus informed the journalists attending the congress that the stadiums were really wonderful, adding that they were “more beautiful than those in Germany.”Facts and statistics regarding our World Cup stadiums:
- Collectively the stadiums seat more than 570 000 people. - The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban has a steel arch 105 m above the middle of the pitch, and will have a cable car which will take visitors to a viewing platform. - Soccer City in Johannesburg takes the form of a calabash, a traditional African drinking vessel. The outer skin area spans 43 000 square metres, and will be constructed from wholly natural energy-efficient material. It is the biggest stadium in Africa, seating almost 95 000 people. No mean feat, when one considers than the last Olympic Games in Beijing opening ceremony seated only 91 000 people. - The Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit is situated in a region known for its wild beauty and animals, close to the Kruger National Park. Its signature feature is the 18 roof supports that resemble giraffes.
With just 400 days left until the 2010 World Cup kicks off, it appears that there will be no problems regarding stadium readiness or capacity, plus it’s pretty safe to assume that all the venues are going to be packed to capacity for each and every game.
Stadiums facts courtesy of the South Africa 2010 Government website.
The 32 teams participating at next year's FIFA World Cup finals discovered their fate this evening when the Final Draw for South Africa 2010 took place in Cape Town.
