Word: africas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...There are many terrific teams and no clear favorite South Africa 2010 is already shaping up to be one of the more unpredictable World Cups in recent memory. As many as 10 of the 32 teams arguably have the talent and experience to win the tournament, and a host of others have the ability to cause upsets. There are no runaway favorites for the trophy, either. Few would pick the defending champion, Italy, to repeat next year, and neither Brazil nor Argentina are anywhere near their scintillating best. All of Europe's leading football nations - France, England, Germany, the Netherlands...
...world woke up on Thursday finally knowing the complete, 32-team field for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa next summer. (The last team to qualify was Uruguay, which drew with Costa Rica Wednesday night in Montevideo, but had beaten the Costa Ricans over the weekend.) On Dec. 4, the teams will be seeded and sorted by lottery into eight groups by the sport's international body, FIFA. Then, it's only 203 days until the fun begins. Here are five reasons to get excited about the opening kick...
...rise of Africa African soccer had its first big moment two decades ago when a little known Cameroon side dazzled its way into the quarterfinals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Before then, Sub-Saharan Africa hadn't made much of an impression on the global soccer stage beyond the occasional embarrassing episode, such as when a Zaire defender tried to pre-empt a Brazil free kick by booting the ball away in the 1974 tournament. But since the early 1990s, the stature of African football has only grown: top African players are now superstars in the world...
...African teams participating, the host nation is perhaps the weakest, though it'll be buoyed by fanatical home support. Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon - traditionally the dominant teams of West Africa - all have the talent to shake up the tournament. Ghana and Ivory Coast, in particular, bristle with confidence and star power. The dark horse of the African field is Algeria, which qualified only after a tense playoff match with bitter rival Egypt on Wednesday in Sudan following outbursts of violence by both teams' fans in Cairo and Algiers. The victory has catapulted Algeria into its first World...
...novel Soul Sister, which was also highly acclaimed. Wallraff, who came across both books after he started shooting Black on White, says he has wanted to make this kind of film for years. In the 1980s, he had prepared to go undercover as a black man in South Africa, but then Nelson Mandela was suddenly freed, apartheid came to an end and his mission lost its purpose. In the 1990s, he wanted to join African refugees who were trying to sneak their way into Europe, but he couldn't find a trafficker who would take him on. (See pictures...