Word: cupped
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...Although Egypt routinely wins the continent-wide African Nations Cup, it has not made it to the World Cup since 1990 (when it booked its passage with a win over Algeria). Being represented on the premier stage of the global game is no small feat for a country that is obsessed with both soccer and its national image. Nor have Egypt-Algeria encounters traditionally passed without incident: the 1989 qualifier was followed by riots in which an Egyptian team doctor lost an eye and Interpol issued an arrest warrant for an Algerian player...
...Wednesday, we'll set up a big tent and 1,000 additional chairs," says Gamel. "It has been 20 years since Egypt played in the World Cup. It is the dream of 80 million Egyptians." Indeed, the emotions on Wednesday's playoff are likely to be even more intense than what was witnessed on Saturday - particularly if the result does not go Egypt...
Read "North Korea Wipes Out Iran (from the World Cup...