Soon enough, when somebody mentions South Africa we will once again think of Nelson Mandela rather than football ... when a fly buzzes past our ear we won’t instantly reach for the remote control to turn down that horrible vuvuzela tune ... and in Australia, sports journalists will be reporting on AFL instead of the Socceroos once again. So today we take a quick look back at the semi-finals and the match for third place, prolonging the excitement and sense of history a little longer.
Uruguay 2:3 Netherlands
There was a fantastic distribution of goal kickers as well as goals across the span of this match - the semi-finals atmosphere combined with netted ball after netted ball made it a real thriller! Sneijder, Robben and Van Brockhurst scored for the Netherlands, while Forlan and Pereira's two goals were definitely earned ... but not enough to get Uruguay to the finals.
Germany 0:1 Spain
This match was pretty empty until the 74th minute, when Carles Puyol's single goal of the match tipped the balance in Spain's favour. This was a repeat of what happened to score Spain the European title over Germany two years ago ... I'm willing to bet Joachim Low specifically works a counter to this strategy into his own game plan next time around!
Uruguay 2:3 Germany
With only 8 minutes left, this goal-fest of a match was brought to a close by Sami Khedira. Mueller and Jansen also scored, and Cavani and Forlan worked hard for Uruguay ... but to no avail.
Did You Know?
And I thought soccer was all about the glory! Wikipedia recently enlightened me that every team exiting the World Cup, at any stage, will actually get a pretty sizable payout. The distribution is as follows:
- $8 million – To each team exiting after the group stage (16 teams)
- $9 million – To each team exiting after the round of 16 (8 teams)
- $14 million – To each team exiting after the quarter-finals (4 teams)
- $18 million – Fourth placed team
- $20 million – Third placed team
- $24 million – Runner up
- $30 million – Winner
All teams that don't make it past the group stage still get a consolation prize of $1 million.
Tweeter's Cup
Bless their twitty little typing fingers... apart from the ones that are still falsely claiming the vuvuzela was banned so that you will click on their links.
--- FredericoJota: Congratulations, Uruguay! #worldcup
--- EdwardMonton: As the World Cup comes to a close, keep the memories alive with Vuvuzela's Greatest Hits... http://twitpic.com/246pba #worldcup #vuvuzela
--- ninamania: RT @MrsStephenFry: FIFA #worldcup Joke 1: Question - What do you call an Englishman in the World Cup Final? Answer - Ref.
--- wisamarta: PETA urges people to free Paul, psychic octopus http://goo.gl/fb/8MUoz #worldcup