Spain pick Pedro over Torres for final

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque left Fernando Torres out of his starting lineup for Sunday's World Cup final against Netherlands, replacing the misfiring striker with Pedro for a second straight match.
Torres, who returned from knee surgery shortly before the tournament in South Africa and has not scored in six appearances, lost his place to Pedro in the semi-final against Germany and came off the bench late in the second half.
Pedro will partner striker David Villa, joint top scorer at the finals on five goals with Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder, Uruguay striker Diego Forlan and Germany forward Thomas Mueller, in a twin-pronged attack.

Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk restored right back Gregory van der Wiel and holding midfielder Nigel de Jong to his starting lineup after the pair were suspended for the 3-2 semifinal victory over Uruguay.
They replace Khalid Boulahrouz and Demy de Zeeuw respectively, who drop to the bench.
Teams
Netherlands: 1-Maarten Stekelenburg; 2-Gregory van der Wiel, 3-John Heitinga, 4-Joris Mathijsen, 5-Giovanni van Bronckhorst; 7-Dirk Kuyt, 6-Mark van Bommel, 10-Wesley Sneijder, 8-Nigel de Jong, 11-Arjen Robben; 9-Robin van Persie.
Spain: 1-Iker Casillas; 15-Sergio Ramos, 3-Gerard Pique, 5-Carles Puyol, 11-Joan Capdevila; 14-Xabi Alonso, 8-Xavi, 6-Andres Iniesta, 16-Sergio Busquets; 18-Pedro, 7-David Villa.
Referee: Howard Webb (England)

Octopus Paul Allen predictions for the Fifa World Cup 2010 finals:Spain to win

PAUL THE Octopus or Paul Oktopus is a 2 year old octopus with a history of correctly predicting the results of major German international football matches, especially in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This total rate of 11 out of 12 games constitutes a significant deviation from what a flipping coin would suggest, using a Binomial test. Paul was born at the Sea Life Park in Weymouth, England but currently resides at the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen,Germany.

Octopus Allen is sixth time right with the prediction as Germany lost against Spain in the second Semifinals of FIFA WORLD CUPFINAL 2010 by 1-0. Carles Puyol scored for Spain.Yet another prediction by Paul Octopus, now is the six on six prediction favoring Spain's win in the finals. As per Paul Octopus’s prediction, Spain cam into the finals of the World Cup football. After this forecast, German fans are looking with trapped heart.

Paul the Octopus correctly chose the winner in each of Germany’s six matches in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, including Germany’s loss to Serbia during the group phase, and a loss to Spain in semifinals.The Germany’s Paul Allen the Octopus baba has become an online observable, for his mysterious capability to pick winners of FIFA world cup 2010 in South Africa.

This World Cup, whatever forecasts were predicted by ‘Paul Octopus’, has proved right. Spain who are the favorites, displayed thier best performance 60 years back in 1950, when they reached the quarter-finals.

Now, Paul the Octopus is going to hog the limelight till Sunday’s epic World cup final clash. Till now he has only predicted in games involving Germany, so it is not clear whether his psychic powers are limited to games involving Germany or they also go beyond that.

Whatever said and done Paul, the Octopus is the biggest winner and star of this Fifa World Cup

PAUL THE OCTOPUS MAKES THE HEADLINES AGAIN

PAUL MAKES THE HEADLINES AGAIN BY PREDICTING THE WINNERS OF SEMI FINAL AS SPAIN...
NOW PAUL CAN BE TRUSTED FOR EVENT THE FINAL RESULTS.

SPAIN =1 GERMANY=0

SPAIN 1ST SEMI FINAL WINNERS

Octopus Paul picks Spain over Germany

Sea Life Aquarium's spokesman Daniel Fey said Tuesday that the famous mollusk from Oberhausen chose a mussel from a glass tank marked with a Spanish flag, while ignoring the tank marked with the German colors — indicating a Spanish victory in Wednesday's semifinal.

But there could be hope for the Germans.

The only time the usually-prescient Paul erred in the past was in picking a Germany-Spain matchup in the 2008 European Championship, when he picked Germany and Spain prevailed.

Otherwise, Paul correctly predicting Germany's wins over Argentina and England, and also foretold the victories over Australia and Ghana and the country's loss to Serbia.

Once again Paul the octopus picks it right

Paul, a two-year-old octopus born in England now living in a German aquarium, has a 100-percent winning streak at the World Cup.

With the recent win of Germany once again the Paul has been accurate.

Time for Deigo to GOOOO.

Paul, the two year old octopus Predicts FIFA match results

Paul, the two year old octopus is getting famous day by day for his predictions over the FIFA World Cup’s matches. English born Octopus, known to be “psychic” due to the fact that he predicts World Cup’s matches perfectly, is a known icon these days and is in a German aquarium at this point of time.

Paul, right now, has a hundred percent record at the World Cup. He has a winning streak of four and he has predicted all the four matches, for Germany, perfectly. The eight legged octopus, who is a denizen of sea life in a town which is located in the West side of Oberhausen, has recently turned into a celebrity after his prediction of the pre quarter final match between England and Germany.

On Tuesday, Paul was again given a choice to pick a winner of the Quarter final match between Argentina and Germany. It works like this; there are two containers that are lowered towards Paul, one with a German flag and the other with the nation that is going to face the Germans, in this case, Argentina. The two containers have his food, clams, inside them and he opens the lid and feasts in one of them. Whichever container he chooses that country wins the match. It is also decided by the amount of time he spends to decide the winner. For example, in the match between England and Germany, Paul took no time and just went in the German container to eat his food; resulting in a thrashing 4-1 victory of the Germans over the English side. Therefore, the Germans were not troubled by the English at all and won easily.

On the other hand, Paul took a lot of time to decide which country to pick between Argentina and Germany. The sea life spokeswoman said that it took around forty five minutes for Paul to decide whether which container he should go and feast in. She said that this means that the match is going to be tough, and it might go into extra time or even Penalties but the Germans will triumph over the South American nation.

Paul doesn’t only sit in the German container. He chose Serbia over Germany when he was asked to predict about the match between them during the group stages. Serbia defeated Germany and shocked the world and the Germans themselves.

There is no trick about this, and there is no such thing as a “left side container” or a “right side container.” The flags keep switching sides and it’s not always Germany he chooses for the win. The food is the same; the amount is the same, according to Munzig, the spokeswoman of the German aquarium. When asked how Paul predicts all the matches, the reply she gave was: “That’s his little secret.”

We cannot be too sure of how this works, but this octopus has predicted all the German matches correctly. He did not go wrong in any of them, even when the Germans actually suffered a loss from the Serbians. Is this octopus for real? Well, no one can be too sure. All we know is that this match is going to be very exciting, as two of the greatest footballing nations are to collide in an action pact match in FIFA World Cup 2010, South Africa.

Demel and C.Ronaldo Fight / Yellow Card Ivory Coast Portugal 2010

Controversial errors at FIFA 2010

Germany 4, England 1: In the 38th minute of the second-round game, with England behind 2-1, Lampard sent a shot off the crossbar. The ball came straight down at least a foot inside the goal line, but referee Jorge Larrionda waved play to continue. Television replays confirmed the ball was in the net.

United States 2, Slovenia 2: Moments after the Americans tied the score in the first round, Landon Donovan took a free kick from the side of the penalty area in the 85th minute as players jostled in front. Maurice Edu spun away from Bojan Jokic and, one step into the 6-yard box, stuck out his left foot and put the ball in. But referee Koman Coulibaly had whistled play dead for a foul. He never explained who on the U.S. team did what.

United States 1, Algeria 0: In the final group game, Clint Dempsey scored in the 21st minute off the rebound of Herculez Gomez's shot. But the goal was called offside. Again, replays indicated Dempsey was in a fair position.

Mexico 2, France 0: In a first-round Group A match, Javier Hernandez appeared to be in an offside position when he ran onto Rafael Marquez's pass and went around goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to give Mexico a 1-0 lead in the 64th minute.

Brazil 3, Ivory Coast 1: Brazil striker Luis Fabiano handled the ball twice as he juggled it past two Ivory Coast defenders before scoring for a 2-0 lead in a 3-1 group win that secured advancement for the Brazilians. The referee later came over and patted his own upper right arm.

Slovakia 3, Italy 2: Fabio Quagliarella thought he scored a late equalizer for Italy — the loss eliminated the defending champions in the group stage — but he was ruled offside by the smallest of margins, a ruling that was disputed by the Italians and appeared to be an error on replays.

Ghana 1, Australia 1: Aussie forward Harry Kewell was sent off in the 24th minute after blocking a goal-bound shot with his upper arm. The arm was pinned against his body, but Swiss referee Roberto Rosetti showed Kewell the red card in the first-round match.

3 More reason to watch FIFA 2010

Here are some more reason for all of us to watch FIFA 2010

1) Cesc Fabregas : Spanish team player who plays central midfeilder, and its associated with Arsenal club. Fàbregas functions mostly as a play maker and his main asset is his passing range. As one of the most coveted and celebrated young talents in the game today, he has been described as being the kernel of Arsenal's first team.

2) Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite: He is commonly known as Kaka, is a Brazilian team player and plays in midfielder position. He also currently plays for Real Madrid.



















3) Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro: He is commonly known as Cristiano Ronaldo, is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid and serves as captain of the Portugal national team

FIFA WORLD CUP INTERESTING FACTS

Soccer World Cup Interesting Facts

See also the past winners list, goal trivia, top goal scorers, list of firsts, history, and trivia about each past host country and participating countries.

The first world cup soccer match kicked off on July 13th, 1930 with France beating Mexico 4 to 1 (more on Uruguay 1930)

There were a total of 13 teams in the first World Cup. Besides the host Uruguay, there were Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, France, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Romania, the United States and Yugoslavia.

Did you know that South American and European countries have won the World Cup 9 times and 9 times respectively. There has been no other continent which has produced a World Cup Champion.

World Cup Winners (total number by country)

Brazil 5

Italy 4

Germany (West) 3

Uruguay 2

Argentina 2

England 1

France

Who says there is no such thing as home advantage? Out of the 19 World Cups so far, six have been won by the host country.

Bora Milutinovic coached in every tournament between 1986 and 2002 - but for different teams: Mexico, Costa Rica, USA, Nigeria and China.

No European team has won a World Cup played outside of Europe.

Five teams have been unbeaten but not the champions in the same finals. Those unbeaten teams are: Scotland in 1974 (1 win, 2 draws), Brazil in 1978 (4 wins, 3 draws), England in 1982 (3 wins, 2 draws), Cameroon in 1982 (3 draws), Belgium in 1998 (3 draws).

The only person to have played both World Cup Football and World Cup Cricket is Viv Richards - playing for Antigua in football and West Indies in cricket.

Cameroon's Roger Milla is the oldest player at the World Cup - he was 42 years and 39 days old when he played his last match against Russia in 1994. Northern Ireland's Norman Whiteside is the youngest ever finals player, being just 17 years and 41 days when he took the field against Yugoslavia in 1982.

Shirt swapping was once officially prohibited in 1986 because FIFA did not want players to 'bare their chests' on the field.

The highest attendance at a World Cup match was 199,854 at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janerio for the 1950 decider between Uraguay and Brazil.

The most common surname of World Cup players is Gonzalez or Gonzales. The most common score in a World Cup finals match is 1-0.

Brazil are the only country to have appeared in every finals, 19 finals tournaments from 1930 to 2010. And they have automatically qualified for the 2016 tournament as hosts.

The 2010 World Cup is the first with no debutant associations, although two of the qualifiers (Slovakia and Serbia) have previously appeared only as parts of former competing nations.

No host country has ever been eliminated in the first round - is 2010 the first time?

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http://fifa2010final.blogspot.com/2010/06/firsts-in-world-cups.html

THE FIRST'S IN WORLD CUPS

Football World Cup Firsts

1930 Uruguay

• The FIRST World Cup match ever played was between Mexico and France, with France winning 4-1. The match was played in Montevideo, Uruguay on 13 July 1930.

• The FIRST player to be sent off was Peru's captain Mario de Las Casas in a match against Romania on 14 July 1930.

• The FIRST player to score a penalty goal was Mexico's Manuel Rocquetas Rosas against Argentina on 19 July 1930.

• The FIRST player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup match was United States' Bert Patenaude who did this against Paraguay in the first round of the 1930 World Cup. Some records wrongly have the first player scoring a hat-trick as Guillermo Stabile of Argentina in their 6:3 win over Mexico on 19 July 1930, two days after Patenaude.

• The FIRST player to score in a World Cup match was Lucien Laurent of France in the 19th minute in the first World Cup match on 13 July 1930.

• The FIRST player to be replaced in World Cup finals due to injury was French goalkeeper Alex Thepot. The goalkeeper was kicked by a Mexican player in the jaw in the opening match of the 1930 World Cup. He was replaced by midfielder Augustin Chantrel.

1934 Italy

• The FIRST qualifying match was between Sweden and Estonia (6:2) on 11 June 1933.

• The FIRST player to miss a penalty in World Cup finals was Brazil's Valdemar de Brito. De Brito missed the penalty in Brazil's 3-1 loss to Spain on 27 May 1934. That was Brazil's only match in the 1934 finals, and the only finals in which Brazil did not win any match. He later amended his reputation as he discovered and nurtured Pele.

• The FIRST ever tied match was between Italy and Spain, the score one all. The game was played in Florence, Italy on 31 May 1934.

• The FIRST match with extra-time was Austria vs France on 27 May 1934.

• The FIRST final with extra-time was Italy vs Czechoslovakia on 10 June 1934.

• The FIRST and only qualifying match played by a host country was by Italy (hosts) 4, Greece 0 on 25 March 1934.

• The FIRST player to have scored 4 goals in a qualifier was Ireland's Paddy Moore who scored 4 goals in their 4:4 draw with Belgium on 25 Feb 1934 in Dublin.

• The FIRST Asian country to play in a qualifying match was Palestine which lost 1:7 in Egypt on 10 March 1934.

1938 France

• The FIRST Asian country to appear in finals was the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in 1938.

• The FIRST time numbers were used on players' shirts in the World Cup was in the 1938 finals in France.

• The FIRST player to score an own goal was Ernst Lötscher of Switzerland against West Germany in a first round replay game on 9 June 1938.

1954 Switzerland

• The FIRST replacement of a player in a qualifying match was Germany's Horst Eckel replaced by Richard Gottinger against Saar on 11 October 1953.

• The FIRST time the tradition of swapping shirts began in World Cup 1954.

• The FIRST country to be eliminated by toss of coin in qualifying round was Spain which lost to Turkey on toss after a 2:2 tie in a play-off match on 17 March 1954.

1958 Sweden

• The FIRST scoreless match was Brazil vs England in Stockholm, Sweden on 11 June, 1958.

• The FIRST live worldwide TV coverage of the World Cup was in 1958.

1966 England

• The FIRST time drug testing was introduced was in World Cup finals in 1966. Players banned after failing in drug testing include Haiti's Ernest Jean-Joseph (1974), Scotland's Willie Johnston (1978) and Argentina's Diego Maradona (1994).

• The FIRST World Cup mascot was a lion-like boy called Willie used for the England 1966 World Cup.

• The FIRST player to score a header in the World Cup Final was Geoff Hurst of England, in 1966.

• The FIRST Asian team to progress beyond the first round of the World Cup finals was North Korea in 1966.

1970 Mexico

• The FIRST substitution of a goalkeeper was Romania's Necula Raducanu who replaced Steve Adamache in a match against Brazil on 10 June 1970.

• The FIRST player to receive a yellow card was Lovchev of the USSR in the 1970 opening match against Mexico on 31 May 1970.

• The FIRST substitute to score a goal was Mexico's Juan Basaguren in the match against El Salvador on 7 June 1970.

• The FIRST time substitutes were used in World Cup finals matches was 1970. Before 1970, only injured players were allowed to be replaced.

• The FIRST substitute in World Cup finals was Soviet player Anatoly Puzach who replaced Serebrannikov in the 1970 opening match against Mexico on 31 May 1970.

1974 Germany

• The FIRST red-carded player was Chile's Carlos Caszely in a match against West Germany on 14 June 1974.

1978 Argentina

• The FIRST qualifying match played on artificial turf was between Canada and USA on 24 Sept 1976 in Vancouver, Canada.

• The FIRST qualifying match played indoor was between USA and Canada on 20 Oct 1976 in Seattle, USA.

• The FIRST team to win a qualifying match on penalty shootout was Tunisia, which won 4:2 on penalties over Morocco after a 1:1 tie at home on 9 Jan 1977.

• The FIRST country to withdraw from the World Cup due to the inability to pay the entrance fee was Sri Lanka which withdrew from the 1978 World Cup.

1982 Spain

• The FIRST match decided with a penalty shoot-out was the semi-final between West Germany and France on 8 July, 1982, in which the Germans won the shootout 5:4.

• The FIRST player to take penalty shootout in World Cup finals was Alain Giresse of France, who scored the first ever penalty in a shootout where France lost 4:5 to West Germany in the semi-final on 8 July 1982.

• The FIRST substitute to score a hat-trick was Laszlo Kiss of Hungary in a match against El Salvador on 15 June 1982.

1986 Mexico

• The FIRST match where a coach was sent off was in a first round match against Belgium on 11 June 1986, with Paraguayan coach Cayetano Re being shown his marching orders.

1994 USA

• The FIRST Final decided on penalty shoot-out was the 1994 Final in which Brazil beat Italy 3:2 on penalty shoot-out after the match finished in a 0:0 tie.

• The FIRST match played indoors was at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit, USA on 18 June 1994, in a match between USA and Switzerland.

• The FIRST player to take a penalty shootout in a final was Franco Baresi of Italy, taking the shootout in the 1994 final but blasted it over the bar.

• The FIRST goalkeeper to be sent-off was Gianluca Pagliuca of Italy in a match against Norway on 23 June 1994.

1998 France

• The FIRST player to score a golden goal was France's Laurent Blanc in the 113th minute in the Second Round match against Paraquay on 28 June 1998.

• The FIRST French player to be sent off in World Cup finals was Zindine Zidane, in the first Round match against Saudi Arabia on 18 June 1998. France had kept a clean sheet for 68 years until France 98!

2006 Germany

• The FIRST Game of the Germany '06 tournament was between the host Germany and Costa Rica. This is the first time the Cup holders did not open the tournament.

• The FIRST goal scored in Germany 2006 Finals was by the German player Lah

WAKA WAKA THE OFFICIAL FIFA 2010 SONG

"Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" in English, and "Waka Waka (Esto es África)" in Spanish, is a song by Shakira featuring Freshlyground. The song will be performed by Shakira and South African group Freshlyground, at the Closing Ceremony before the World Cup Final on July 11 in Johannesburg Soccer City Stadium. The song is officially available for download through digital retailers the week of May 11. It also will be included on Listen Up! The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Album to be released the week of May 31 by Sony Music Entertainment. The Spanish version is as well available in selected markets.[2]

"Waka Waka" received mixed critical reception. The song is charted in a number of countries, number one in Italy and Spain, number two in Switzerland, top ten in Austria, Belgium, and in Germany.