The World Cup, South Africa’s Symbol of Hope

There is a museum that stands near the majestic Soccer City stadium. It acts as a witness to a history that is distressed and the incredible flight of understanding for the national host of the World Cup. The Apartheid Museum that is found in Johannesburg’s is one of the most significant destinations. It draws a lot of people to the artifacts, images and video that give details to the reality of South Africa’s culturally distressed earlier period.

Apartheid was enforced in South Africa during 1948 to 1994. It is a system of legal racial segregation in which the rights of the greater part of non-white population of South Africa were reduced. Wayde Davy the Deputy Director of the Apartheid Museum said that they are currently looking at a high volume of visitors to the place. Our expectancy rate was between 2,000 and 2,500 daily visitors and now we are averaging around 4,000 and 4,500.

The World Cup has extremely brought a high number of tourists to the region of Johannesburg and because of these, the fans has prominently featured the Apartheid Museum in the itineraries. On Youth Day, 16 June, 6,300 people went to visit the museum. A lot of people were shocked after they visit the museum. The terrible nature of what they have witnessed together with the moving journey imply that they go away worn out. Now the question that time and again pops up is, today, how is South Africa doing?

The museum give an idea of how South Africa was, a few years back, they hear a lot of bad feedbacks about South Africa, but arrive here and only see good, Davy said. This World Cup has launched interaction and now there is a feeling of strong will between South Africans to stay united. He believes that this distinct World Cup has enormous promotional importance for South Africa, for Johannesburg and for the museum, and it could not be quantified.

Apart from getting lots of visitors coming to the museum, the press has also started documenting the museum and feed those images home. The museum entertains five to six camera crews a day. This means a lot of people world wide will appreciate how far our journey has come.

The museum features additional exhibits to correspond with the World Cup, an assortment of art sculptures of the football history in the 1950’s in South Africa. This exhibit discuss about the fact that soccer is an integrated sport and players go out of South Africa to play in mixed teams. The World Cup in Africa signifies that the museum sees an increase in African visitors. Most of them have different reaction and emotion since they relate to the report.

Germany vs England: Renewed Rivalry

This is a reunion of England and Germany the old rivals and Latin American hopefuls Mexico and Argentina. They will keep football fans glued to their seats on day two of the Round of 16 in the 2010 World Cup. The European giants have not foreseen their paths crossing at the early stage of the competition, but England’s second place finish in Group C deprived them a simpler route. Neither team has shown their best so far. And both teams worked hard for their advance. Germany managed to successfully integrate young talent from last year’s European U-21 Championship team. Coach Fabio Capello of England has toned down his disciplined approach but will use his veteran players to deliver the goods. Not fearing group stage fallout, the two candidates are free from tension but surely one of Europe’s biggest names will fall by the wayside at the end.

Diego Maradona the Argentina coach took his time to settle down with his new role and succeeded in getting his message thru the squad who was dedicated to his guidance. pull out from his own experiences being a player, he handed the captain’s responsibility to Lionel Messi before the game with Mexico and his tiny genius is increasing at ease with Argentina shirt, but Mexico will rely on their finest ever production of players and will never roll over.

A guaranteed interest will be given by the game between traditional powers even when the teams are not claiming to be at their best. England got one win and two draws throughout the group duties but stay distressed in proving that they can still continue but they will need more fluid motion and efficiency in front of goal if they want to survive further than this weekend. Wayne Rooney will carry the heaviest weight and pressure to improve as it is clearly shown that he is not in optimum form. But he should have noted that team Germany looks vulnerable at the back.

After just four years and four days meeting at the same venue of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Mexico and Argentina will renew their rivalry for a spot in the last eight. The Argentina’s primary attacking threat will be a youngster this time around, that will be operating in a free role behind two strikers. But he will have to compete with the attention given to Marquez, his friend and Barcelona team mate. While Los Aztecas defensive midfielder will be in meager mode and the result of their personal duel will no doubt have an enormous impact on the final score.

Paraguay vs Japan Poll

Paraguay vs Japan Poll

Netherlands vs Slovakia Poll

Netherlands vs Slovakia Poll

New Zealand Physically strong says Italy

Defending champions Italy seem to be at the lowest of their confidence levels. Their talk is all about how New Zealand can be a real threat to the game, and they consider them nothing less than underdogs. Unlike the other times, this time they are not predicting how good they could win against the Kiwi team.
Coach Frederico Marchetti says, “We know they are a very physical squad and good in the air.” The coach and his team are already aware of how well they will have to guard their game if at all they don’t want to pull up any further embarrassment.

What the Italians are also scared off is their last 4-3 win against the Kiwis in a friendly match they played in last year’s Confederations Cup that was held in South Africa. The Azzurrri’s infact have won the World Cup title more than any other European team, but this time seems to be a bit difficult for them.

A confident defender Giorgio Chiellini also says, “We’re certainly not as behind from as everybody made us out to be, although we still have a lot of room for improvement.” He continues to talk about New Zealand saying, “New Zealand is a very physical team and we say that when we met them before the Confederations Cup. They’re dangerous on headers, crosses and free kicks. ”

The All-Whites team have proved it umpteen times that they are not a side to be taken lightly. They are here to do their best and take home the World Cup. They played a splendid match against the Slovakian team where a header by Reid caused a major upset leaving the Slovak’s deadlocked after their first game.

Another draw against Italy and they could add in to the shock. Coach Ricki Herbert said, “I’m sure everybody in the group thought they would get three points out of New Zealand and maybe the Slovakia result will change Italy’s thinking a small bit but I don’t know.”

Is The Remaining Time Still Enough?

For some months now, almost all the World Cup related fears could be diverted by the phrase, “there is still time.”  This phrase has been used by coaches whose teams are not performing to par.  It has also been used by players who are trying to make a come back from injury or poor performance.  And it’s been used by organizers of the tournaments in an attempt to reassure the general public that any remaining problems will be dealt with and soon taken cared of.

Yet with the opening of the tournament in less than 100 days to go, time is a starting to be a very precious commodity that is fast disappearing and the problems are beginning to pile up in some quarters.  With this in mind, we could expect more story lines to be read about how they manage to patch up the problems and the great solutions they have made to stop the problems that occur from now until the start of the tournament that will be opening in June.

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