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Germany’s away jersey for the 2010 World Cup tournament has been unveiled by the Deutscher Fussball Bund and Adidas. In a break from the red strip the team wore in the past when playing away from home, the new shirt is black. An interesting colour choice for a rather warm South African winter in the months of June and July…

Red and gold complement the base colour, whilst the badge contains the DFB logo and three gold stars, one for each World Cup win (1954, 1974 and 1990).

White shorts with black and red strips round out the away wear.

Germany will test their Adidas kit against Argentina in Munich on 3 March 2010. The announcement can be read in more detail at the DFB site.

The adidas Tango was the first football I ever played with that had a technological advantage. Even for amateur, school-level football, that ball was an absolute revolution – light in weight, perfectly round and unwilling to soak up water the way older leather-panel balls would. Adidas still develops special match balls for the World Cup, and the 2010 edition features some up-to-date technology. The adidas Jabulani is made up of eight thermally-bonded 3D panels that are spherically molded to make the ball perfectly round.

The name is typically South African and the design incorporates some colours of the South African flag.

Jabulani. To celebrate.

In 2010, I’m sure we will.

The draw for the FIFA World Cup 2010 tournament has taken place.

Of 200 teams in over 800 matches, 32 teams qualified for the competition. The 32 teams have been placed into eight groups and thus have been allocated their first opponents and venues of play beginning 11 June 2010. In a draw that was performed by a number of celebrities, South Africa has had its first opportunity to impress the world.

Group A

	South Africa
	Mexico
	Uruguay
	France

Group B

	Argentina
	Nigeria
	Korea Republic
	Greece

Group C

	England
	United States of America
	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
	Ivory Coast
	Portugal

Group H

	Spain
	Switzerland
	Honduras
	Chile

Some very interesting combinations! Spain seems to have a reasonably easy group, whilst the other seeds are likely to have a tougher time. Now, to book accommodation and a flight…

Though there’s no replacement for actually being there, it’s unlikely many fans will have the opportunity of attending as many matches as they would like to come June 2010. In a rather interesting technological twist, Sony and FIFA have just announced an initiative that will bring 25 matches from the 2010 World Cup to the small screen in 3D. The small screen is the next generation of flat panel displays and a huge drive is underway to develop 3D content and transmission technologies by all companies involved in the production of these units.

Whether or not the matches will actually be broadcast live for viewing in 3D is not yet clear: negotiations and various other considerations will have to be sifted through first. At the very least, the games will be available for purchase on DVD or BluRay for later viewing.

Sony may also host booths to showcase the technology during the period of the World Cup and possibly some games will be shown live.

The FIFA press release is available here.

FIFA has announced the eight seeded teams and the individual pots from which teams will be chosen for the official draw that will be taking place at 19:00 South African time this coming Friday. The 90 minute event will see 32 teams allocated to eight groups designated A through H. Each of the seeded teams will be allocated to one of the groups in position 1, whilst the remaining teams will be drawn from pots and allocated to individual groups. There are some rules: except for teams from Europe, no two teams from any one confederation will occupy the same group. As the host nation, South Africa is allocated to the premier position A1 and starts off in pot 1 together with the remaining 7 seeded teams. The seeding is based on the October FIFA ranking.

Pot 1 (seeded teams and host nation)

	South Africa
	Brazil
	Spain
	Netherlands
	Italy
	Germany
	Argentina
	England

Pot 2

	Australia
	Japan
	Korea Republic
	Korea DPR
	Honduras
	Mexico
	United States of America
	New Zealand

Pot 3

	Algeria
	Cameroon
	Ivory Coast
	Ghana
	Nigeria
	Chile
	Paraguay
	Uruguay

Pot 4

	Denmark
	France
	Greece
	Portugal
	Serbia
	Slovakia
	Slovenia
	Switzerland

The separation of higher-ranked teams means there should be some excitement lined up for matches beyond the first round. How well South Africa fares through the first round will be interesting.

With 231 days to go until the first game kicks off in the 2010 World Cup Tournament, our local team is in a bit of a fix. Having performed reasonably well in the Confederations Cup, in my opinion, South Africa slipped up more than once in their recent games. So much so that the coach has been sacked.

Bafana Bafana lack international experience as a team, that much is clear. Their primary weaknesses are a shoddy defensive lineup and an inability to score when presented with an opportunity to do so. The midfield performs reasonably and individuals in the team are more than capable of giving their counterparts in other national sides a run for their money.

With the introduction of new leadership and a possible new coaching style so close to the main event, it’s unlikely that South Africa will be able to remedy all their shortcomings in time. Looks a bit like an uphill battle to me…

It pays to persevere or at least try again. The possibility exists that ticket sales for 2010 are not going so well. I’m not too sure. In any case, I was pleased to hear that we finally managed to purchase tickets for next year’s tournament. Our attempt in the first round draw for tickets in the team-specific ticket (TST) category was unsuccessful, probably because TST7 includes tickets to the final.

With no luck in the draw, the open ticket sales proved to be the next best opportunity. Indeed, we managed to secure tickets in the TST6 category to follow Germany (I just checked – those tickets are no longer available). We’ll be doing without the final, but that was a slim chance to begin with – six games will take us to the semi-finals. Let’s hope the Germans will join us…

Whilst the online ticket purchase is a seamless experience, my biggest bugbear is the stranglehold both FNB (as the official banker) and VISA (as the official credit card) have on the cash held in trust by them for the initial draw.

To enter the draw, full payment for all requested tickets is required. In exchange, a personalized FNB Visa Official Mascot Prepaid Card is provided. An unsuccessful attempt means the money stays in the bank. Try paying online for your ticket order during the next phase: no chance to use the Prepaid Card. No chance of transferring the cash from that Prepaid Card to anywhere else either, according to FNB staff. Their best advice is to withdraw cash from an ATM using the card, with a limit of ZAR 2000 per day applied. No problem if the amount in the account is less than ZAR 2000, but certainly impractical and expensive when considering amounts in excess of ZAR 50,000! Furthermore, to gain access to the cash when withdrawing from the bank requires a round of FICA accreditation, an odd requirement, considering the account and ticket application requires positive identification…

How much money the sponsors make out of their sponsorship is never revealed, and one will always hear stories of huge investment and cost. Forcing customers into fee payments that are bogus is a clear indication that money can be made, by fair means or foul.

In the meantime, here’s Alexander‘s countdown to 2010.

Sunday saw the final game being played in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup tournament. Overall, the tournament was a huge success, proving without doubt that South Africa is more than capable of hosting international events.

I attended two games, one in Ellis Park in Johannesburg and one at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria. The two major issues I found detracted from the overall experience was related to huge traffic volumes blocking the way to the park and ride locations. Once there, things were very well organized and signposted with ample parking available. Though there were always long queues waiting for buses to get to the stadium, overall waiting times were not long and the bus trip to the stadium short.

Getting into the stadium and finding one’s seat was generally no problem. Gaining access to the beer of the tournament, Budweiser, took forever. Long queues and a rather ridiculous process of emptying the contents from glass bottles into plastic cups. That takes way too long and is inefficient. Also, Budweiser tastes like crap, but that’s a different story… Install a few draught taps and pre-fill as many of them plastic cups as possible pre-match, is my suggestion.

But, watching a football game should not be reliant on vast quantities of alcohol being consumed.

In my experience, crowds were very well behaved and a large police and security presence evident.

Annoying not only during the games but in queues waiting to leave the stadium, the vuvuzela.

That plastic tube is capable of an awful noise. Fine when blown in moderation during a game, but certainly a pain when blown into someone’s ear at close range. Though considered an essential part of the African football experience, chances are that the vuvuzela may be banned from the 2010 World Cup. No loss if that happens…

After the game in Pretoria, absolute chaos ensued because the crowd was not shepherded into neat little rows leading to the buses that would take them back to the park and ride facilities. With no one in control, buses were forced to stop farther and farther away from the exit and pedestrians got dangerously close to the traffic. Overall waiting time: at least two hours. The situation was far better at Ellis Park, where no one could exit anywhere other than the area where buses had their pickup point.

These organizational issues should be easy to resolve for 2010. Other issues mentioned by FIFA include a lack of accommodation and lack of a decent public transportation infrastructure. FIFA awarded a score of 75% to South Africa, not bad, I think. 80% would have been a fairer score, but we probably lost the additional 5% due to the beer fiasco…

Here’s an overview of the games and results.

Final
USA 2 : Brazil 3

3rd place
South Africa 2 : Spain 3

Semi-finals
USA 2 : Spain 0
South Africa 0 : Brazil 1

Group A
South Africa 0 : Iraq 0
New Zealand 0 : Spain 5
Spain 1 : Iraq 0
N. Zealand 0 : S. Africa 2
South Africa 0 : Spain 2
New Zealand 0 : Iraq 0

Group B
Brazil 4 : Egypt 3
USA 1 : Italy 3
Brazil 3 : USA 0
Egypt 1 : Italy 0
Brazil 3 : Italy 0
Egypt 0 : USA 3

Now, let’s get ready for the actual event: FIFA World Cup 2010!

It took the team from the USA a scant ten minutes to shock their Brazilian opponents. Dempsey scored a goal as the USA maintained pressure on the favourites in the exciting final of the 2009 Confederations Cup. Another 17 minutes, and Donovan scored yet again for the USA. Brazil seemed very unsettled and uncomfortable as the team from the USA showed remarkable skill and poise in breaking away and countering.

About 40 seconds after kick-off in the second half saw a Brazilian team that must have had a bit of a talking to in the locker room: Fabiano executed a remarkable turn, pushing the ball into the back of the American net. With that, the lead the Americans enjoyed shrunk to just a single goal. On 60 minutes, the ball hopped between the horizontal post and goal line, the Brazilians claiming a goal. Slow motion replays seem to suggest that a goal should have been allocated to them, but the US managed to survive, their lead still intact. Only a few minutes later, and Fabiano once again scored for Brazil. The top goal scorer of the tournament set the score to 2:2 in the 74th minute, requiring the US team to once again plan a comeback.

Lucio finally gave Brazil the lead, scoring in the 84th minute. That goal was the result of a huge amount of pressure from the Brazilian team, unabated since Fabiano scored at the beginning of the second half.

Brazil is the Confederations Cup 2009 winner.

USA 2 : Brazil 3

The game for the third place in a major tournament is often a boring affair: teams are ready to pack up and go home. This time, it was slightly different. Spain is the number one team and had high hopes of gaining access to the final to win the tournament. South Africa is the host nation and crowds in Rustenburg were keen to see their team repeat the performance shown against Brazil.

South Africa once again did not disappoint, playing a consistent and inventive game. Two names will be remembered in this game: Mphela for South Africa and Guiza for Spain. Both players scored two goals: Mphela opened the scoresheet for the hosts in the 73rd minute after South Africa had held their opponents well under control, though Khune was forced to make a number of spectacular saves to maintain the 0:0 prior to Mphela‘s excellent goal.

It all seemed as though the hosts would be able to take 3rd place until the 88th minute when Guiza equalized. A minute later, and a cheeky chip by Guiza beat the South African keeper resulting in a 2:1 lead for Spain. In injury time, seconds to go to the final whistle: Mphela once again scores to equalize. His free kick must rank among the best of the tournament and left the Spanish keeper no chance. With the score tied at 2:2, the teams settled into extra time. Spain clinched the game in the 107th minute when Alonso scored from a set piece.

Spain rescued some credibility and South Africa indicated to everyone that their form against Brazil had been no fluke: the team has stepped its game up a notch and improved significantly over the last three weeks. That bodes very well for next year’s World Cup.

South Africa 2 : Spain 3