World Cup 2010 Venues: Part 5 - Pretoria

Loftus Versfeld Stadium has a very classic though modern feel. With design inspiration from Europe, Loftus Versfeld looks permanent, well-built and experienced at hosting major soccer events. It was built in 2003 and has already been renovated (2008) for the World Cup. Some of rounds 1 and 2 will be hosted here in great style.

When?

"Little did he know the fire storm an actual victory would incite."

After the Italian victory (for the fourth time!) in the 2006 World Cup, a bunch of hooligans, the Italian kind, went crazy. I don't like the way these fans expressed themselves, but when is even a kernal of such spirit going to invade the US fandom? Maybe it is happening right now.

First, there is actual reason to cheer. The US hasn't lost to Mexico at home in 8 years. People close to soccer know that we actually have a quality set of players and reserves, and no one is all that upset with the coaching. So the pieces are in place. The key players are in respectable leagues getting better by the week.

Fans? Well, for the first time in a long memory, two interesting things occurred during the US win over Mexico back in February. A) the fans were rudely wild, from interrupting the national anthem to throwing all manner of debris during the goal moments of the game itself. The fans actually cheered the US team more than the Mexican team. (Maybe Ohio didn't read that part about Mexico retaking Atzlán soon). B) The announcer on the Univision feed was.... well... not just polite, but seemed actually excited with both US goals. And they weren't great goals. Just goals. This time, by the US, being cheered on UNIVISION. Ummph.

The fan support was really quite cool to see. Let's not take a page from the UK playbook (or Italian either) and set fire to the stadium or anything else. Short of that, we still have a lot of energetic cheering room to grow. And maybe this is the 15 months in which it will actually show up.

World Cup 2010 Venues: Part 4 - Rustenberg

Royal Bafokeng Stadium will be used in the early rounds of the South Africa World Cup next year. It is a multi-use stadium, which is not perfect, but very understandable smaller city to want to get the most future use out of the stadium decades after the World Cup has come and gone.

World Cup 2010 Venues - Part 3: Nelspruit

Mbombela Stadium takes its name from a southern African language called Swati, and it means "A lot of people together in a small space". Well, 40,000 people in the same building will be just that. Let's wait for its completion, which is expected this year.

Design? Nothing crazy here. I know that there are only so many ways to skin a cat, but I thought people went into the architecture field to be expressive. Well, most don't, obviously.

World Cup 2010 Venues - Part 2: Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein is home to Free State Stadium. Standard modern soccer stadium fair. Nothing to inspire, but at least fans are close to the field. Notice the cricket stadium at the top of the picture. This isn't Kansas anymore.

South Africa World Cup Venues - Part 1 : Durban

Of the ten stadiums planned for inclusion in next year's big adventure, this one is the most dramatic. It breaks from the English model (Finally!) and seems like Spain's Calatrava was channeled for the roof suspension design. Very innovative. Innovation is good.

It will be named King's Park.

FIFA 2010 South Africa - Number of Teams by Region

Home Team............ 1
Africa............... 5
America - At large... 1
Asia................. 5
Central and North Am. 3
Europe...............13
South America........ 4

Total................32

BTW, the official mascot as shown is named Zakumi. Using both a Z and a K (two unlikely letters in most languages) is astounding.

US MNT is listed as 17th in the World ?

FIFA rankings normally appear to made by drunk monkeys throwing darts at a board with the team names on it, but it is fun and quite heady territory to think that the drunk monkeys may be on to something that could prove quite intereting in the coming 15 months. The Men are winning convincingly and they haven't even really had all their best players on the field all at the same time yet.

Hope is a strange thing when it can spring from sauced primates.

Jersey Exchange

International play has a tradition of players exchanging jerseys as part of the brief post-game rites. I am not sure how they decide who will exchange with which opponent member, but I guess it works for them. Here, Claudio Reyna of US National team does the greet/exchange with a Czech republic team member after a 2006 match.

Your mother is a terrorist

Perhaps the most controversial play in modern soccer (Maradona's Hand of God is #2), Zidane responded to an opposing player who called is mother a terrorist by physically attacking him and getting kicked out of the game (which was almost over at the time). The comment was horrible, but comments are not ussually enforced in soccer, since enforcement in multilingual environments is nearly impossible. Physical violence is mostly enforced, though I am surprised that the referee actually saw this occur and therefore felt comfortable in correctly ejecting Zidane.

The comment was wrong. Zidane was wrong. Knowing what will be enforced is part of the game.

22nd in the world is correct

The US beat Mexico Wednesday night to put Mexico in a serious hole to even qualify for South Africa. But the story here is the US. Well, the lack of a great US team is the story. Mexico was playing without 3 normal starters. True, the US didn't have a couple of its super-estrellas either (Adu, Atladore). While the first goal is a thing of beautiful determination, it was also a study in not-going-to-the-ball by the Mexican defense.

I didn't even like the second goal, since the Mexican defense was completely asleep and the keeper appears to let the ball go right through his hands. Not his fingers, but his hands and most of his upper body a well. Unbelievable. Ugly. Not a good sign for either team.

FIFA ranks the US 22nd best in the world right now. Fine. 22nds in the world don't win it all every four years. When is the 300,000,000 strong US of A going to field a top 10 contender for the World cup? Not sure. But this team ain't it.

La Mano de Dios

In eleven short seconds, you can see the second most controversial goal in modern soccer history. Notice after the goal that the English players all can't believe a hand ball wasn't called. Remeber that Maradona himself termed the play the "hand of God", so how do you think HE believes the ball got into the back of the net?

Should today's players be instructed in how to cheat effectively? Don't they already do it?

FIFA HQ

Yes, Virginia, there is a beautiful soccer field at FIFA headquarters. Considering the money that FIFA has at its disposal, it could have gold leaf turf. Still, the campus is visually appealing.

Losing Ugly

Mexico lost to Honduras in the final CONCACAF qualifier. They moved on, but not before multiple fouls, and two red cards. This was bad. Multiple-game suspensions should be doled out.

Korea?

The US Women's team recently tied Korea 2-2 in a match that included a 10 minute period when a key US player was out for medical care, not replaced so that she could return, and during which time Korea scored BOTH of its goals.

The coach has been summarily criticized for leaving the team a player short, but the bigger issue is the play of the other ten that were still on the field.

In the words of the Sportsprof:

It was an exciting game, but make no mistake about it, the North Koreans were the aggressors.

I watch a lot of soccer and the 14 billion passes are fine and dandy, but are mostly passes BACK and to the side. Being "agressors" has almost been lost. I see many opportunities that coaches could be using film to point out so that players have a better chance of seeing and using during future play.

Agressive play - sending balls forward into space, sending balls long, actually ... God forbid... DRIBBLING, all of this isn't a good way to get yourself benched on many teams, and yet the US team almost gets kicked from the 07 world cup for just that spirit missing from their play.

I don't want to return to the 1970's when that was all people did, but all kinds of soccer have their place. Better teams, like tiny Korea in the face of a high quality US Women's team, know this.

Better Soccer Teams Score Goals

Watch and enjoy. A great pass makes scoring this easy.

Only 4 Countries NOT in the Hunt

FIFA recognizes 209 countries for the purposes of the World Cup. All but four are taking part in at least the preliminary matches for their region of the world. Those four that just aren't that into soccer are Bhutan, Brunei, Laos and the Philippines. Thanks to world cup blog for this heads up.

So, between today and early 2010, the world cup will shrink for a record 205 participants, to the 32 actually at the tournament in South Africa in June and July of 2010. (Do you say "two thousand ten" or "twenty ten"?)