SSN is a digest of the day's soccer/football/futbol articles with a focus on the top European leagues and the United States National Team. Below, you’ll find links to articles and video, as well as additional features and commentary. We locate the top news of the day so you can stay updated with ease.
Argentina vs. Nigeria
10am EDT
Ellis Park, Johannesburg
Preview I
Preview II
England vs. United States
2:30pm EDT
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg
Preview I
Preview II
ON THE EVE OF WORLD CUP 2010
Their ostentatious antics became more than a mere sideshow in Germany in 2006. They also proved to be a distraction and an embarrassment to both their partners and to English soccer.
A small piece of football history will be made in Johannesburg when Brazil play North Korea for the first time, perhaps the most incongruous pairing thrown up by the World Cup draw.Brazil are five-time winners and the world's top-ranked side; most of their players are superstars on a global level.
The majority of North Korea's squad are unknowns, insulated from the intense glare of the world's biggest tournament in their secretive homeland. At 105th, they are also the lowest-ranked team at the competition.
They were reviled as the prawn sandwich brigade but, for this World Cup at least, they will have to stay at home and make their own sandwiches and buy their own champagne. Corporate hospitality has slumped at the World Cup in South Africa.
One estimate claims that bookings are down by 46 per cent on the 2006 World Cup in Germany and Fifa has admitted defeat by putting 38,000 corporate tickets on the open market.
Portugal winger Nani has been ruled out of the World Cup after suffering a shoulder injury.
"After tests we conclude he is unfit to participate in the World Cup," said a team statement.
When the United States clinched qualification for the 2010 World Cup last October, it marked the country's sixth consecutive appearance in the finals of soccer's biggest party, and in every respect it wasn't a surprise. Given the resources the sport enjoys in the U.S. these days, qualifying for the World Cup is the bare minimum that is expected. Any other outcome is borderline unthinkable. Yet there was a time when such expectations were the stuff of fantasy.
Between 1950 and 1990, not only did the U.S. fail to qualify, on only one of those occasions could it claim to have gotten as close as the final hurdle. That came in 1954, when the qualifying journey consisted of a single round of games.
It could have been worse. That was the only consoling thought on a day when Africa’s World Cup euphoria evaporated.
For 20 people, including a policeman, to be injured in a stampede at the friendly match between Nigeria and North Korea in the Johannesburg suburb of Makhulong was nonetheless bad enough. This, after all, was one of those low-key fixtures designed to tune national teams for tournaments at which passion is usually hard to summon.
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