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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.

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.

Today marks the one year countdown to the FIFA World Cup 2010 that is to take place in South Africa.

All indications are that preparations are progressing well. The amount of construction currently underway in all major cities is astounding: new airports, new roads, new railways, upgrades to existing infrastructure and of course completion of the stadiums that will host the games.

This weekend, South Africa will be tested on the pitch and in matters infrastructure, service delivery and event hosting: the first games of the 2009 Confederations Cup kick off on Sunday.

Overall, I think that South Africa is more than ready and able to host an event of this magnitude. Only one year to go – it’ll be over before we know it.

It’s the last day to enter the first draw for tickets for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and, in true South African style, we’ve left it right to the last minute just to make things a bit more interesting…

A combination of four team specific tickets has been submitted along with a reasonable amount of cash that will likely earn FNB a fat bit of interest for them to recoup some of their sponsorship expenditure. The TST tickets are for us to follow , of course!

Now, we wait and see what the results of the draw will be. The draw is to be held on 15 April… Holding thumbs!