Salani Kahle South Africa!

It seems like just yesterday we were all gearing up for the main event. Vuvuzelas blowing, flags waving and people from all over the globe come to be part of the world’s biggest party. Everybody seemed to be in a festive mood wearing their best to support their respective countries. Nothing else really mattered.

The World Cup was different this time. We had a few shocks and some terrible mistakes but on the whole it was quite an entertaining World Cup. We were all stunned with Spain’s defeat to Switzerland and France, England, Italy and Brazil’s early exit. We were furious with refereeing decisions regarding offsides and disallowed goals. We were surprised with how far teams like Slovakia, Ghana, Paraguay and even Uruguay for that matter reached and were definitely mesmerized by some amazing goals and saves.

The opening and closing ceremony was breath-taking and South Africa and her people must be given their due credit for their spectacular efforts. The stadiums were grand, the people were warm and friendly, the country was beautiful and though some would say that the vuvuzelas, kuduzelas and sockzelas were annoying there are many who would beg to differ.

Spain were the crowned world champions and though I personally think that their game was not spectacular in every way, they yet deserved to win it. They got the goals when they needed them, they stood united in defence and their game was fair play even though they were faced with opponents who looked rowdy, extremely aggressive and played the game with a mentality that almost seemed disturbing.

“I prefer a very ugly game and we win, instead of a beautiful game and we lose….. We’re in a World Cup final, so it doesn’t matter how we’ve played….. These are all things that aren’t important. I don’t want friends, I want to be world champion.”                                    -Arjen Robben

The adidas Golden Boot and Best Young Player award went to Thomas Müller and was rightly deserved. For a player of 20 he was impressive. He scored 5 goals and had 3 assists.

The adidas Golden Glove went Iker Casillas another deserving candidate. He has made some impressive saves and has been a terrific captain.

Lastly, it was Diego Forlán who won the adidas Golden Ball. He has been a marvel to watch this world cup scoring 5 goals in 7 games.

So its goodbye World Cup 2010 South Africa and thank you for an entertaining month of football. But don’t be sad because in 4 years which is really, not that far away we will we saying Hola World Cup 2014 Brasil.