The World Cup soccer tournament is now taking place in South Africa.  If you are into soccer, then this site may prove valuable to you.  Did you know that China just “whupped” France 1-0 as Deng Zhuoxiang’s 68th-minute goal was enough to win it for China and the match finished 1-0. While the French will feel a little unlucky, they did have the majority of the ball, it is results that matter and this wasn’t a good one. The “Official Official” site may be here at http://www.fifa.com/.  From what I have read, Brazil is to emerge the winner… but who knows.  There will be a lot of wild and crazy carrying ons and hopefully, there will not be a lot of damage to the stadium and to the viewers.   

The Arizona Republic ( Sunday, Jun 6, 2010, page T4) has a nice listing of Cape Town and some super websites.  They include Cape Town Tourism and Cape Town and Western Capetown Information Center.  There are walking tours, Roots Africa Tours, Sabona Wildlife Reserve and finally your best means to arrive at South African Airways. 

The Match Schedule provides all the information you need about the tournament.  Lots more news at http://www.goal.com/en-us/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup has tons of information all about the world cup.  

Some of the most exciting news which is generally very bad are the stampedes that sometimes accompany a match.  The Headline News read: 16 injured in stampede at World Cup friendly.  The entire story may be found online. 

I just don’t understand much about the game but I do enjoy watching the goals and the tons of celebrations that accompany a goal.  Problem for me is that they just don’t score many goals.  I have felt for a long time that they need to do something like widen the goal, make it easier to score or something rather than ending up a game 1-0 or else 0-0 and that requires a penalty shootout that is always exciting.  The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to penalty shots, with a single player taking one shot on goal from a specified spot, the only defender being the goalkeeper. Teams take turns, the winner being the one with the most number of successful goals after a specified number of attempts.   Just an observation from a novice fan.  jeb