The biggest sporting event in the world is just over a year away. It is, of course, the FIFA World Cup, the prestigious football event that takes place once every four years.
South Africa is hosting the 2010 World Cup, which is being held in a number of South African cities, including Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Pretoria, Durban and Bloemfontein. The tournament begins on June 11, 2010 and ends exactly one month later on July 11. Johannesburg, the country's largest city, is hosting the championship match at Soccer City Stadium, which is currently under renovation to be new and improved in time for the World Cup.
Although the big event is still 18 months away, a long and exhausting qualification process has already begun. South Africa automatically qualifies for the field on 32 teams, but the other 31 places are still ready. Qualifying matches began in August 2007 and will end in November 2009. The raffle ceremony to place the 32 finalists in groups will be held in December 2009.
Currently, various qualifying tournaments are taking place all over the world. World Cup hopes are vying for 13 places among European countries, five places for African teams (besides South Africa), four or five for South America, three or four for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, and either no spots or one for Oceania.
In Asia, Australia and the Republic of Korea are currently leaders in their respective qualification groups. In Europe, Denmark, Greece, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, England, Serbia, Italy and the Netherlands are on top of the groups. Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile currently look good in South America. Qualifying matches in Africa and the North / Central America and Caribbean divisions have not yet begun.
Once the qualification is completed and sets the stage for the draw ceremony in December 2009 in Cape Town, the 32 world championships will be placed in eight groups of four teams. Each team in a group plays every other team in its group, and the top two teams (16 in total) advance to the knockout phase, which takes place between June 26, 2009 and June 29.
Round-robin group games are held from June 11 to June 25.
In the first round of the knockout phase, the eight group winners play the eight group runners. Then the rest of the tournament is single elimination. However, the losers of the semi-finals will square off in a third-place match held on July 10 in Port Elizabeth.
Italy are the defending champions who have beaten France 5-3 on penalties in the title fight in 2006. Brazil, who won the World Cup most recently in 1994 and 2002, own the most world championship titles with five. Italy has four and Germany, the host country in 2006, has three. Italy is currently third in the FIFA rankings, while Brazil is fifth and Germany is number two. Spain is the top-ranked team, while the Netherlands is the second team in the top 5. All five countries must be serious providers in South Africa, https://www.livescorebkk.com.