The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa promises to draw even bigger audiences than the widely watched World Cup 2006 in Germany and World Cup 2002 in Japan and Korea. For four weeks in 2010, South Africa will be the centre of the world. South Africa's 2010 World Cup is predicted to be the most commercially successful since the first FIFA World Cup tournament was held 76 years ago. The 2010 World Cup will be held in ten stadiums across South Africa, where 32 qualified teams will battle for honors of best football team in the world. The current World Cup champions, Italy , are sure to bring back a strong team and be challenged again by Brazil and France. They will be relying heavily on superstar athletes Luca Toni and Del Piero to bring home another title.

For the 2010 World Cup, Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, which was also the host of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, will be hosting the first and second round matches. Green Point Stadium in Cape Town South Africa will be hosting the first and second rounds of the World Cup as well as one quarter final. Soccer City in Johannesburg, South Africa will host one semi-final and final of the World Cup 2010.

The FIFA World Cup competition was started in 1930 by Jules Rimet, a French lawyer and member of FIFA. The very first competition was held in 1930 in Uruguay, and was crowned the very first champions, beating Argentina in a come from behind victory. Brazil has the most amounts of World Cup trophies (5) out of any country in the tournament. Soccer legends such as Brazilian Pele and Argentinean Maradona became famous due to their performance in the World Cup.

World Cup 2010 Qualification

The FIFA World Cup qualification process will go through November of 2009, and the World Cup draw will be held in Cape Town on December 9, 2009 to decide the composition of World Cup groups. Only the host country, South Africa automatically qualifies for the final tournament. For the 2010 World Cup all 207 remaining nations hope for World Cup 2010 qualification, but only 31 national football teams from the FIFA affiliated federations will qualify. There will be 13 teams from Europe, 5 from Africa, 4-5 from South America, Asia and 3-4 from North-Central America. Over two years, national teams play qualification matches against other teams in their qualifying group, at least once at home and once away.
Once the qualification rounds are finished there is a lottery in which 32 teams are picked from 4 hats in order to create groups for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The host team, South Africa however will not be featured in the draw. Instead the squad will be playing their group matches in the capital city.

2010 World Cup Results

This OleOle World Cup community is for international football fans to find news, scores, results, tables and fixtures for all the FIFA World Cup matches. See club standings, contribute to the World Cup 2010 facts and history, discuss and comment in the forum, or follow live matches online in the MatchCentre. This fan community is for you.