World Cup 2010 Blog: “World Cup 2010 Jerseys: Mexico” plus 1 more

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World Cup 2010 Jerseys: Mexico Posted: 16 Mar 2010 03:10 PM PDT We continue our review of World Cup 2010 kits with a look at what Mexico will be wearing in South Africa. As mentioned before, I have zero fashion credentials. Unless sitting through The Devil Wears Prada and finding it reasonably enjoyable counts. Which I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. But I can offer an honest reaction that hopefully stays away from being either too snarky or too serious. Big news is that between World Cup 2006 and World Cup 2010, Mexico made the switch. The big switch. From Nike to adidas. So the home and away versions of their three stripe manufactured World Cup 2010 kits (as modeled very seriously by Francisco Palencia to the left there) can be found below. Mexico Home Shirt - Want one? Find your Mexico World Cup 2010 home jersey in the World Cup Blog store. If you’re thinking “that looks a bit plain” then I’d agree with you. At first glance anyway. Because after a few looks at the Mexico home shirt I’ve come to think of it as very clean and simple, in a good way. The green, white and red colours of El Tri are very clearly represented. Green body, red stripes on the shoulders, and white collar with a red trim. Everything just right. Except… my only complaint would be the armpits. As with all adidas World Cup 2010 jerseys, there’s a splash of colour under the arms. This works better with some jerseys than with others. Unfortunately the effect in this Mexico home jersey is that the wearer appears to bleeding from the armpits. Like maybe it’s on a bit too tight (which may be true in the case of Francisco Palincia, above. Go up a size man!) Possibly the best thing about this jersey is the underlying pattern. As with the adidas South Africa jersey, the body of this Mexico jersey features a symbolic pattern. For South Africa it was the flag, for Mexico it’s feathers, which apparently represent the Eagle Warrior (the bravest in the Aztec army) and also the eagle on the Mexican Football Federation crest. Mexico Away Shirt - You like? Find your Mexico away shirt in the World Cup Blog store. Mexico’s away shirts have been white for as long as I can remember. But no more. For World Cup 2010 Mexico’s away jerseys will be black. It’s such a big change that you’ve got to admire the balls it took to make this decision. I’d say the black suits the feather motif nicely, and also helps the red and green elements stand out. Even better, armpits are green. So no armpit blood here. Only complaint is that the black design means there’s no room for white, and so one of the “El Tri” colours is missing. What do you think of Mexico’s home and away kits for World Cup 2010?

Wavin’ Flag: The Song You’ll be Singing at World Cup 2010 Posted: 16 Mar 2010 09:30 AM PDT You may as well have a good listen to this song now, because you’re going to be hearing much much more of it during World Cup 2010. It’s called “Wavin’ Flag” by Somalian-born Canadian-rasied hip-hop artist K’naan, and and is the official song of Coca-Cola’s World Cup 2010 campaign. For the record it’s NOT the official song of World Cup 2010. It just may as well be, given Coca-Cola’s prominence as World Cup sponsors. For the fizzy pop and football version, K’naan is joined by Latin-Grammy winning Spanish pop singer David Bisbal for an Anglo-Hispanic version that’s intended to represent global unity. Might sound cheesy, but I’d argue that having one song that people of two languages can enjoy has to be a good thing. Unless you speak only French, German or Japanese. As for the song itself… have a listen. Try and tell yourself you don’t like it. Then realize that the song is still playing in your head long after the above video has finished. Now wave your flag. Thanks to Tomás Rodriguez of Something Like Football for sending the video to tips[at]theoffside.com

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NCAA Tournament: Why Purdue, Butler, Michigan State and New Mexico might be out early

MAMUDU, Your March 17, 2010 issue of Sporting News Today is now available, please click here. Here are some articles in Today's Issue Top 10 underdogs who can make a Sweet 16 run Ark.-Pine Bluff beats Winthrop 61-44, will play Duke Sheets, Millwood, Figgins endure spring struggles NFL draft prospects who can bring the pass rush NBA players prepare for possible lockout If you experience any problems with your issue, please click here to contact our customer service department. Know a friend who might like Sporting News Today? Email him/her this link: www.sportingnewstoday.com.     Trouble Viewing? If any of the above links do not work for you,   copy and paste this URL into your browser:   http://today.sportingnews.com/t=c/?1&124156&158192&19646&0000&1236491627&EIInjEOx9cS45     Please do not reply to this message. Questions may be submitted to Digital Support.   To stop receiving email notifications for digital issues of Sporting News Today,   click here.   Sporting News Today 120 West Morehead Street Suite 200 Charlotte, NC 28202

World Cup 2010 Blog: “The Ballon d’Or & The World Cup” plus 2 more

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• The Ballon d’Or & The World Cup
• World Cup 2010, March Madness Style
• David Beckham Out of World Cup 2010: Will You Miss Him?

The Ballon d’Or & The World Cup Posted: 15 Mar 2010 06:10 PM PDT Though Gonzalo Higuain may protest, two names dominated the scoreboards this weekend: Lionel Messi & Wayne Rooney. Why? It’s simple: both are currently in blistering form, scoring goals at dizzying pace (Wayne a brace, Leo a hat trick) and thus breaking away from the pack in the dash (slow, consequential dash) for the ESM European Golden Shoe. Standings (games remaining in parenthesis): 1. Wayne Rooney 25 x 2.0 = 50 (8) 2. Lionel Messi 22 x 2.0 = 44 (12) 3. Didier Drogba 21 x 2.0 = 42 (9) While mere goals don’t mean one nab the Ballon d’Or, they’re both two of the best in the world going into the final stretches of the domestic and continental seasons. They both also seem to have this aura about them, an inexplicable cloud of inevitable success no matter the opposition, and that does make you a Ballon d’Or candidate. Most years. There are two competitions which tickle the fancy of Ballon d’Or voters above all: the World Cup & the Champions League, and in that order. The Euros do matter, but not quite to the degree of either the club or country behemoth. Which means normally we’d be now entering the stage of the season where Ballon d’Or whispers start to gain legitimacy. The first round Champions League knockouts are half over, Man Utd are through while Barcelona have a slight advantage going into tomorrow’s Nou Camp return leg, and this is when Ballon d’Or winners are made – some almost entirely (see: Kaka, 2007). Yet this is a World Cup year, and if recent history tells us anything, you can almost forget the rest of the year. The final World Cup spot of the winners’ team tells the story starting from the last page: ‘06: Cannavaro – Winner ‘02: Ronaldo – Winner ‘98: Zidane – Winner — ‘94: Stoichkov – 4th* ‘90: Matthaus – Winner ‘86: Belanov – 1st KO* ‘82: Rossi – Winner ‘78: Keegan – DNP* ‘74: Cruijff – 2nd ‘70: Muller – 3rd* (England was not involved with World Cup 1978 for sporting reasons.) The reason for the break in 1995 is a Ballon d’Or rule change which made non-Europeans eligible for the award, changing the entire scope of the honor, in the process also earning it a whole new sense of legitimacy. Thus the asterisk. The asterisk indicates a World Cup won by a non-European side, meaning once in the last 10 World Cups has a European World Cup winner not featured the Ballon d’Or winner. And since the award was expanded in 1995, every Ballon d’Or winner in a World Cup year came from the winner. Which isn’t, of course, to discredit any of their awards, as leading your country to a World Cup is eclipsed by absolutely nothing in the sport, thus should be – and was – rewarded as such. But it means if you’re a professional footballer and individual awards are your bag, it may behoove you to put it on cruise control ’til June 10th or so. And if you happen to be Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney (hi, love your work), all you need to do to cap a brilliant season with football’s highest individual honor is shepherd your team to football’s highest team honor. No pressure.

World Cup 2010, March Madness Style Posted: 15 Mar 2010 09:50 AM PDT American sports fans are about to go crazy with March Madness. For those unfamiliar, it’s a 64 team NCAA college basketball knockout tournament (or 65 teams if you count tomorrow’s play-in game). The teams are seeded and then organized into a bracket where the high seeds open by playing the low seeds and everything rolls from there. Obviously not everyone’s happy with their seed, and there’s always plenty of complaining once the bracket is released. The World Cup isn’t quite organized like this, but March Madness seems like a perfect excuse to pretend it was. So I’ve ranked all the qualified World Cup teams #1 to #32, based on the March 3rd, 2010 FIFA World Ranking. Below you’ll find those seedings, followed by what the World Cup 2010 March Madness style bracket would look like. #1 Spain #2 Brazil #3 Netherlands #4 Italy #5 Germany #6 Portugal #7 France #8 England #9 Argentina #10 Greece #11 Serbia #12 Chile #13 Mexico #14 Switzerland #15 USA #16 Uruguay #17 Cameroon #18 Nigeria #19 Cote d’Ivoire #20 Australia #21 Slovenia #22 Ghana #23 Paraguay #24 Slovakia #25 Algeria #26 Denmark #27 Honduras #28 Japan #29 South Korea #30 New Zealand #31 South Africa #32 North Korea Tough draw for hosts South Africa, who face #2 seed Brazil in the opening round. Don’t fancy North Korea’s chances vs Spain either. A victory for the #32 seed there would be quite the upset. Some other intriguing first round games like Australia vs Mexico, USA vs Nigeria and Ghana vs Serbia too, but – just like in the real World Cup – the big games will come in the second round. If I’m reading that bracket correctly then we could be seeing England vs Germany, Brazil vs USA and France vs Portugal in “Sweet 16″. Which reminds me. One caveat for this World Cup 2010 March Madness bracket: I think I’d want to change some of the names as we progress through the knockouts. I’m thinking we ditch “Final Four” in favour of something like “Awesome Foursome”. How do you see this bracket playing out? - For those interested in actual World Cup bracketology, we have World Cup 2010 wall charts available for download here.

David Beckham Out of World Cup 2010: Will You Miss Him? Posted: 15 Mar 2010 07:42 AM PDT As Dave posted on The Offside yesterday, David Beckham will almost certainly miss World Cup 2010 after tearing his achilles tendon playing for Milan. Doesn’t matter how golden your balls are, you still need your achilles tendon to play football. So now we face the prospect of a Beckham-less World Cup in South Africa. My question to you: Is this a positive or negative? Will you miss D-Becks this summer? On one hand, the public love Beckham the über-celebrity. He shows up and people go crazy, and it seems a shame that the many many Beckham fans either living in or travelling to South Africa will be denied a chance of seeing the man in action. Certainly Sepp Blatter will miss him. On the other hand you could argue that Beckham the player is an all but spent force and that his presence in South Africa would be more about celebrity than soccer. As with any celebrity, there are also people out there who just flat our don’t like old Goldenballs and so don’t enjoy the attention he receives. I can definitely see how serious football fans might have been annoyed during World Cup 2010 with the multiple camera angles of Beckham sitting on the England bench. I’m asking this question because I’m struggling to answer it myself. As an England fan I’m not too worried about Beckham’s absence because he’s no longer a key player. It’s not 2002 anymore. As a blogger I’m slightly disappointed because Beckham equals interest, and so his absence potentially means a few less World Cup viewers during June and July 2010 and probably a few less World Cup Blog readers. It’s very easy to be dismissive of David Beckham. I know this because I’ve done so in the past. But whatever you think of Beckham the player or Beckham the man, I’d argue that he’s one of the biggest names ever to play this sport and so it would have been fitting see him participate in the big show that is the World Cup one last time. What do you say? Will you miss Beckham at World Cup 2010 or not?

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