Sport and Cinema.com

 
 
On Sunday evening in Johannesburg’s Soccer City, one of the two greatest footballing nations never to have won the World Cup will be joining that exclusive club of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ as champions alongside Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Brazil, England, Argentina and France. That is correct, since the first tournament in 1930, only seven different nations [...]

For a team that was supposed to be in transition, experiencing a youth movement and without their captain, Germany, fresh off a dominating quarterfinal victory over Argentina, now faces Spain, the world’s number one ranked team in the semifinals Wednesday in Durban.

Not many experts picked these two to be facing each other at Green Point Stadium in Cape Town Tuesday for the right to advance to the championship match July 11th, but Uruguay and The Netherlands have certainly earned their way to this point.

Clint Eastwood directs this drama, based on a true story, that examines the question – What does Nelson Mandela do after becoming president of South Africa, a nation still racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid?

As part of its 2010 World Cup coverage and celebrating its thirty year anniversary with its 30 for 30 film series, ESPN debuts on Tuesday a film from Jeff and Michael Zimbalist.

To help promote its biggest marketing campaign for a single event, the American cable television giant will look to illuminating the sport’s stars to draw in viewers.

Here are some of the marquee names that will play throughout ESPN’s 230 hours plus coverage of all 64 matches.

For the first time in soccer’s history, its biggest event, the quadrennial World Cup, will be hosted by an African nation as South Africa will be the site of the 32-nation tournament.

The first decade of the twenty-first century has come to a close and there have been some outstanding squads from all the team sports.

You recently witnessed a dominating run by the New York Yankees who became the only team of the decade to win 100 games and the World Series.

The football world gathered in Zurich, Switzerland last Monday for the annual FIFA gala to announce not only the FIFA World Player of the Year, but also the FIFA/FIFPro World XI.

With over 50,000 professional footballers from around the world voting for their best starting XI of the last 12 months; there was huge competition for a place in the prestigious team of the year.

On Friday in Cape Town, South Africa soccer’s governing body, FIFA created the groupings that will provide the basis for the month-long tournament that begins June 11.

*32 Teams

*64 Matches

*48 matches in the first round

*Field gets cut in half with two teams from each group reaching the knockout round.