World Cup 2010

Well firstly congratulations to Spain the winner of World Cup 2010. Next to Netherlands for being runner up. Although I would have preferred Germany to have fought with Spain in the Finals, they had a premature confrontation at the semi-finals with Germany fighting tooth and nail against Uruguay to win third place. Although Uruguay lost and acheived fourth place, they were rather sporting and acted as though they had won something.

To a certain extent this is true, as the last time they had reached top 4 was 1970. 40 years later were they able to repeat it. Germany was a little disappointing to have not gone into the finals despite having a very good team. The absence of Thomas Muller due to a scond yellow card in two matches was critical to Germany's defeat against Spain. Germany lacked the attacking strength and used the wrong strategy - a defensive one. The match was a rare yellow cardless, showing that these two superb teams played by skill and not brute force.

So, let us some up the best of the World Cup. Firstly South Africa selected as the host nation despite the country being in poverty. The world can finally see that the country that was not so long ago divided by apartheid and civil war is able to unite under one common goal (pun intended) - football. Then let us move on to the World Cup matches themselves. There are too many examples to list, but I will list the more memorable ones. (At least to me)

First Robert Green fumble of the ball allow USA to draw with England. Then as the group stages came to an end, the supposed best started crashing out. England, France, Italy all went home rather early with England at least lasting to the last 16. Though there was a very controversial gola disallowed for the English side. The ball was clearly two feet into the goal post. However, Germany was in clear control of that game. Then Argentina and Brazil losing surprisingly to Germany and Netherlands respectively. Uruguay squeezed into the semi-finals by cheating. Striker Luis Suarez acted like goalkeeper and used his hand to block the ball. Ghana missed the penalty given.

Spain eventually won against Netherlands because they had the team spirit, working with each other in cohesion to eventually score a goal after 122 minutes of struggle with the other team which was equally united.
Well done Spain.