Fifa World Cup 2010 Semi Final Teams
After the game, Suárez said, "I made the save of the tournament,"[57] and, referring to the infamous handball goal scored by Diego Maradona in the 1986 World Cup, claimed that "The 'Hand of God' now belongs to me". Suárez claimed he had no alternative and was acting out of instinct.[61] Forlán agreed that Suárez saved the game, "Suárez this time, instead of scoring goals, he saved one, I think he saved the game."[57] Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac said the play was an "injustice"[58] and Suárez was labeled a "villain"[61][62] and a "cheat".[56][63] But Uruguay coach, Óscar Tabárez, said these labels were too harsh: "Well, there was a handball in the penalty area, there was a red card and Suárez was thrown out. Saying that Ghana were cheated out of the game is too harsh. We have to go by the rules. It might have been a mistake by my player but I do not like that word 'cheating'."[64]Ghana was the last African team left in the tournament and if they had won, they would have been the first team from Africa to ever qualify for the semi-finals.[65] Thus, Suárez was said to have "enraged an entire continent [Africa]." But others viewed him as a hero[56][66] who sacrificed himself in the semi-final for the unlikely chance that his team could win.[63][67] A distraught Gyan conceded, "I would say Suárez is a hero now in his own country, because the ball was going in and he held it with his hand. He is a hero now."[65]
Fifa World Cup 2010 Semi Final Teams
The 2010 FIFA World Cup, also branded as South Africa 2010, was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. The bidding process for hosting the tournament finals was open only to African nations. In 2004, the international football federation, FIFA, selected South Africa over Egypt and Morocco to become the first African nation to host the finals.[6]
The matches were played in 10 stadiums in nine host cities around the country,[7] with the opening and final played at the Soccer City stadium in South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg.[8][9] Thirty-two teams were selected for participation[10] via a worldwide qualification tournament that began in August 2007. In the first round of the tournament finals, the teams competed in round-robin groups of four teams for points, with the top two teams in each group proceeding. These 16 teams advanced to the knockout stage, where three rounds of play decided which teams would participate in the final.
The qualification draw for the 2010 World Cup was held in Durban on 25 November 2007. As the host nation, South Africa qualified automatically for the tournament. As happened in the previous tournament, the defending champions were not given an automatic berth, and Italy had to participate in qualification. With a pool of entrants comprising 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams at the time, the 2010 World Cup shares with the 2008 Summer Olympics the record for most competing nations in a sporting event.
I appeal to all the players and coaches to observe this fair play. In 2010 we want to prove that football is more than just kicking a ball but has social and cultural value ... So we ask the players 'please observe fair play' so they will be an example to the rest of the world.[28]
Teams that failed to qualify for this tournament included Saudi Arabia, which had qualified for the previous four tournaments; Tunisia and Croatia, both of whom had qualified for the previous three finals; Costa Rica, Ecuador, Poland and Sweden, who had qualified for the previous two editions; 2006 quarter-finalists Ukraine and Euro 2008 semi-finalists Russia and Turkey. The highest ranked team not to qualify was Croatia (ranked 10th), while the lowest ranked team that did qualify was North Korea (ranked 105th).
The base camps were used by the 32 national squads to stay and train before and during the World Cup tournament. In February 2010, FIFA announced the base camps for each participating team.[58] Fifteen teams were in Gauteng Province, while six teams were based in KwaZulu-Natal, four in the Western Cape, three in North West Province, and one each in Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape, and the Northern Cape.[59]
The FIFA Organising Committee approved the procedure for the final draw on 2 December 2009. The seeding was based on the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking and seven squads joined hosts South Africa as seeded teams for the final draw. No two teams from the same confederation were to be drawn in the same group, except allowing a maximum of two European teams in a group.[60]
As with the 2006 tournament, each team's squad for the 2010 World Cup consisted of 23 players. Each participating national association had to confirm their final 23-player squad by 1 June 2010. Teams were permitted to make late replacements in the event of serious injury, at any time up to 24 hours before their first game.[66]
The South American teams performed strongly, with all five advancing to the round of 16 (four as group winners), and four further advancing to the quarter-finals. However, only Uruguay advanced to the semi-finals.
Only six out of the thirteen UEFA teams advanced to the round of 16, a record low since the introduction of this stage in 1986. Nonetheless, the final was contested by two European teams.[68] In another World Cup first, the two finalists from the preceding tournament, Italy and France, were eliminated at the group stage, with Italy becoming the third defending champions to be eliminated in the first round after Brazil in 1966 and France in 2002.[76] New Zealand, one of the lowest-ranked teams, surprised many by drawing all three of their group matches, ending the tournament as the only undefeated team.
The knockout stage comprised the 16 teams that advanced from the group stage of the tournament. There were four rounds of matches, with each round eliminating half of the teams entering that round. The successive rounds were the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final. There was also a play-off to decide third and fourth place. For each game in the knockout stage, any draw at 90 minutes was followed by thirty minutes of extra time; if scores were still level, there was a penalty shootout to determine who progressed to the next round.[82]
Only 145 goals were scored at South Africa 2010, the lowest of any FIFA World Cup since the tournament switched to a 64-game format. This continued a downward trend since the first 64-game finals were held 12 years earlier, with 171 goals at France 1998, 161 at Korea/Japan 2002 and 147 at Germany 2006.[68]
Shortly after the final, FIFA issued a final ranking of every team in the tournament. The ranking was based on progress in the competition, overall results and quality of the opposition. All 32 teams are ranked based on criteria which have been used by FIFA. The final ranking was as follows:[96]
The 2010 finals amplified international public awareness of the vuvuzela, a long horn blown by fans throughout matches.[133][134][135][136] Many World Cup competitors complained about the noise caused by the vuvuzela horns, including France's Patrice Evra, who blamed the horns for the team's poor performance.[137] Other critics include Lionel Messi, who complained that the sound of the vuvuzelas hampered communication among players on the pitch,[138] and broadcasting companies, which complained that commentators' voices were drowned out by the sound.[139]
The match ball for the 2010 World Cup, manufactured by Adidas, was named the Jabulani, which means "bringing joy to everyone" in Zulu. It was the 11th World Cup match ball made by the German sports equipment maker; it featured 11 colours, representing each player of a team on the pitch and the 11 official languages of South Africa.[145][146] A special match ball with gold panels, called the Jo'bulani, was used at the final in Johannesburg.
As with many "hallmark events" throughout the world,[161] the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been connected to evictions,[162][163][164][165][166] which many claim are meant to 'beautify the city', impress visiting tourists, and hide shackdwellers. On 14 May 2009, the Durban-based shack-dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo took the KwaZulu-Natal government to court over their controversial Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act, meant to eliminate slums in South Africa and put homeless shackdwellers in transit camps in time for the 2010 World Cup.[167][168]
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was expected to be the most-watched television event in history.[182] Hundreds of broadcasters, representing about 70 countries, transmitted the Cup to a TV audience that FIFA officials expect to exceed a cumulative 26 billion people, an average of approximately 400 million viewers per match. FIFA estimated that around 700 million viewers would watch the World Cup final.[183]
In the United States, ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 averaged a 2.1 rating, 2,288,000 households and 3,261,000 viewers for the 64 World Cup games. The rating was up 31 percent from a 1.6 in 2006, while households increased 32 percent from 1,735,000 and viewers rose from 2,316,000. The increases had been higher while the US remained in the tournament. Through the first 50 games, the rating was up 48 percent, households increased 54 percent and viewers rose 60 percent. Univision averaged 2,624,000 viewers for the tournament, up 17 percent, and 1,625,000 households, an increase of 11 percent.[185] An executive of the Nielsen Company, a leading audience research firm in the US, described the aggregate numbers for both networks' coverage of the match between the United States and Ghana as "phenomenal".[186] Live World Cup streaming on ESPN3.com pulled in some of the largest audiences in history, as 7.4 million unique viewers tuned in for matches. In total, ESPN3.com generated 942 million minutes of viewing or more than two hours per unique viewer. All 64 live matches were viewed by an average of 114,000 persons per minute. Most impressive were the numbers for the semi-final between Spain and Germany, which was viewed by 355,000 people per minute, making it ESPN3.com's largest average audience ever.[187] 041b061a72