FIFA's Referees' Committee selected 29 referees through its Refereeing Assistance Programme to officiate at the World Cup: four from the AFC, three from the CAF, six from CONMEBOL, four from CONCACAF, two from the OFC, and ten from UEFA.[64] English referee Howard Webb was chosen to referee the final, making him the first person to referee both the UEFA Champions League final and the World Cup final in the same year.[65]
Squads
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As with the 2006 tournament, each team's squad for the 2010 World Cup consisted of 23 players. Each participating national association had to confirm their final 23-player squad by 1 June 2010. Teams were permitted to make late replacements in the event of serious injury, at any time up to 24 hours before their first game.[66]
Of the 736 players participating in the tournament, over half played their club football in five European domestic leagues; those in England (117 players), Germany (84), Italy (80), Spain (59) and France (46).[67] The English, German and Italian squads were made up of entirely home based players, while only Nigeria had no players from clubs in their own league. In all, players from 52 national leagues entered the tournament. FC Barcelona of Spain was the club contributing the most players to the tournament, with 13 players of their side travelling, 7 with the Spanish team, while another 7 clubs contributed 10 players or more.
In another first for South Africa 2010, one squad included three siblings. Jerry, Johnny, and Wilson Palacios made history thanks to their inclusion in Honduras's 23-man list.[68] Unusually, the game between Germany and Ghana had two brothers playing for opposite nations, with Jérôme Boateng and Kevin-Prince Boateng playing respectively.
Match summary
[edit]The 32 national teams involved in the tournament together played a total of 64 matches starting from the group stage matches and progressing to the knockout stage matches, with teams eliminated through the various progressive stages. Rest days were allocated during the various stages to allow players recovery during the tournament. Preliminary events were also held in celebration of the World Cup event.[69] All times listed in the table below are in South African Standard Time (UTC+02).
| Day | Time | Venue | Stage | Team 1 | Result | Team 2 |
|---|
Group stage
[edit]All times are South Africa Standard Time (UTC+2).
The tournament match schedule was announced in November 2007.[73][74] In the first round, or group stage, the 32 teams were divided into eight groups of four, with each team playing the other three teams in their group once. Teams were awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw and none for a defeat. The top two teams in each group advanced to the round of 16.
The South American teams performed strongly, with all five advancing to the round of 16 (four as group winners), and four further advancing to the quarter-finals. However, only Uruguay advanced to the semi-finals.
Of the six African teams, only Ghana advanced to the round of 16. South Africa became the first host nation in World Cup history to be eliminated in the first round, despite beating France and drawing with Mexico, while Ghana and Ivory Coast were the only other African teams to win a match. The overall performance of the African teams, in the first World Cup to be hosted on the continent, was judged as disappointing by observers such as Cameroon great Roger Milla.[75]
Only six out of the thirteen UEFA teams advanced to the round of 16, a record low since the introduction of this stage in 1986. Nonetheless, the final was contested by two European teams.[68] In another World Cup first, the two finalists from the preceding tournament, Italy and France, were eliminated at the group stage, with Italy becoming the third defending champions to be eliminated in the first round after Brazil in 1966 and France in 2002.[76] New Zealand, one of the lowest-ranked teams, surprised many by drawing all three of their group matches, ending the tournament as the only undefeated team.
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