2010 Is The Year For Football In Southern Africa

May 31, 2010 by Memory Dete ·
Filed under: I was just thinking

2010 IS THE YEAR for football in Southern Africa and the Games have approached. Most notably, South Africa is the first nation on the continent to host the World Cup between June and July this year and it is against this background that many sports fans from across the globe have already landed in South Africa as well as to its neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe, in order to watch the proposed world cup games. The world is watching Southern Africa this year as the region hosts the soccer world cup finals. Since for four weeks in 2010, South Africa will be the centre of the world, the tournament is an opportunity for creativity and everyone is looking for something unique, something new, and something different, in order to be associated and identified with the 2010 FIFA Cup Tournament. The World Cup Games offer irreplaceable benefits to make Southern Africa more visible to the rest of the world. South Africa and its neighbouring nations, will no doubt benefit from the millions of visitors expected for the tournament, and the cream of the world’s sporting media who will be thronging the continent as they are focused on the games. THE BEAUTIFUL GAME “THE WORLD GAME” IT IS BELIEVED THAT many different cultures have played a sport similar to the modern game of soccer but no one can really say with any certainty when or where soccer began but it is known that the earlier variations of what later became soccer were played almost 3000 years ago. The last World Cup games that took place in the united States was watched by an estimated 33 million people around the world for almost 27 days. Football is the most watched single sports event in the world not surpassed even by the Olympics. This sport is bigger than baseball, football and basketball combined Football, more commonly known as r soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players using a spherical ball . It is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world The game is played on a rectangular grass or artificial turf field , with a goal in the centre of each of the short ends. The object of the game is to score by driving the ball into the opposing goal. In general play, the goalkeepers are the only players allowed to use their hands or arms to propel the ball; the rest of the team usually use their feet to kick the ball into position, occasionally using their torso or head to intercept a ball in midair. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is tied at the end of the game, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time and/or a penalty shootout , depending on the format of the competition Football is governed internationally by International Federation of Association Football, commonly known by the acronym FIFA. The most prestigious international football competition is the FIFA World Cup , held every four year. Football is played in accordance with a set of rules known as the Laws of the Game . The game is played using a single spherical ball, known as the football or/soccer ball. Two teams of eleven players each compete to get the ball into the other team’s goal (between the posts and under the bar), thereby scoring a goal. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals then the game is a draw. Each team is led by a captain . The primary law is that players other than goalkeepers may not deliberately handle the ball with their hands or arms during play, though they do use their hands during a throw-in restart. Although players usually use their feet to move the ball around, they may use any part of their bodies other than their hands or arms note-fouls Within normal play, all players are free to play the ball in any direction and move throughout the pitch, though the ball cannot be received in an offside position. In typical game play, players attempt to create goal scoring opportunities through individual control of the ball, such as by dribbling , passing the ball to a team-mate, and by taking shots at the goal, which is guarded by the opposing goalkeeper. Opposing players may try to regain control of the ball by intercepting pass or through tackling the opponent in possession of the ball; however, physical contact between opponents is restricted. Football is generally a free-flowing game, with play stopping only when the ball has left the field of play or when play is stopped by the referee . After a stoppage, play recommences with a specified restart. A goalkeeper dives to stop the ball from entering his goal At a professional level, most matches produce only a few goals. For example, the 2005 season of the English Premier League produced an average of 2.48 goals per match. The Laws of the Game do not specify any player positions other than goalkeeper, but a number of specialised roles have evolved. Broadly, these include three main categories: strikers , or forwards, whose main task is to score goals; defenders , who specialise in preventing their opponents from scoring; and midfielders , who dispossess the opposition and keep possession of the ball in order to pass it to the forwards on their team. Players in these positions are referred to as outfield players, in order to discern them from the single goalkeeper. These positions are further subdivided according to the area of the field in which the player spends most time. For example, there are central defenders, and left and right midfielders. The ten outfield players may be arranged in any combination. The number of players in each position determines the style of the team’s play; more fo

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