World Cup 2010 Blog: “Sit Back and Enjoy the World Cup 2010 Race Against Time” plus 1 more

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Sit Back and Enjoy the World Cup 2010 Race Against Time Posted: 23 Feb 2010 03:03 PM PST The build-up to a World Cup is always exciting. There’s hype galore and expectations on the rise in all 32 competing nations. Good times. Seems the build up to World Cup 2010 will be even more exciting than usual though, because as well as the football related build-up there will apparently be a race against time to get everything ready for the big kick off. FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke (of Charlize Theron flirting fame and pictured above left) was quizzed about South Africa’s readiness to host World Cup 2010 during the FIFA Team Workshop in Sun City, South Africa, and had this to say: “If the question is ‘could we host the World Cup tomorrow morning?’ the answer is ‘no’,” Valcke said at FIFA’s Team Workshop in Sun City. “At this stage, we couldn’t play the World Cup because Soccer City isn’t ready.” “At this stage, we couldn’t play the opening game. That’s a fact. At this stage, we have 700,000 tickets still to sell, at this stage I can make a list of things that aren’t ready for the World Cup. We have 108 days – it seems short, it is short, but even if we have to stay awake all night, every day, we will be ready by the time of the World Cup.” I know, I know. That doesn’t sound great. But nobody panic. We’ve known from the beginning that holding the World Cup in South Africa would require a fair bit of stadium building and other infrastructure work. It’s also been clear for a while now that some of said work was a little behind schedule. But I can’t see a situation where we get to June 11th 2010 without stadiums being finished and enough infrastructure being in place to make the whole thing work. It’s the World Cup. It will happen. It’s taking shape even as I type this. Whatever problems there are, there’s no way an organization as big and powerful and as scared of bad PR as FIFA is going to let anything bad happen to its showpiece quadrennial tournament. So here’s my advice: Ignore any doom-mongering newspaper and/or website headlines and instead just sit back and enjoy what’s likely to be one of the more exciting buildups in World Cup history.

Soundoff: What’s Your “Other” World Cup 2010 Team? Posted: 22 Feb 2010 03:40 PM PST If your national team made it to World Cup 2010, then congratulations. Support them with all your heart (and lungs) this June, and – if you’re lucky – July. But if your team gets knocked out early, or if your team didn’t make it at all, then I’m curious to know who – if anyone – you’ll be supporting instead. I’ve got some history in this department. England failed to make it the 1994 World Cup, and so I threw my support behind Ireland. Because I was familiar with all their players and because manager Jack Charlton was English. Similarly, as a US resident I’ve been supporting the USA as my “other” team ever since the 2006 World Cup. Does anyone else out there have a second team for the World Cup? Either someone you’ll be following because your team didn’t qualify, or a second team you’ll be supporting as well as your main national team? If so, please share by letting us know: 1. What’s your national team? 2. What’s your “second” or “other” national team? and 3. Why that team?

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