FIFA Soccer 2010 World Cup Preview

The 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa between 11 June and 11 July 2010. The World Cup started in 1930 and is held only once every four years. It is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world with over 715 million people viewing the 2006 World Cup final in Germany.

World Cup Format

The 32 national teams who have qualified are assigned to one of 8 groups of 4 teams which play against each other in round-robin tournaments, then the top 2 teams from each group advance to the knockout rounds. These are single-elimination tournaments which lead to the quarter and semi-finals then the final two teams play the Final. Australia has drawn in Group D which consists of Germany, Australia, Serbia and Ghana. Australia’s match dates for the group rounds are:

• 13 June 2010  Play Germany at Durban
• 19 June 2010  Play Ghana at Rustenberg
• 23 June 2010 Play Serbia at Nelspruit

More World Cup information and betting specials can be found at Centrebet.

Soccer World Cup Warm-Up Matches

Australia’s Socceroo team is already in South Africa and was the first overseas team to arrive. Tonight (Tuesday 1 June) they will play against Denmark in the first of their pre-tournament warm up matches in South Africa. The results of this game have no influence on the World Cup rankings, but you can bet on this game at Sportsbet. The starting team against Denmark will be Mark Schwarzer, Luke Wilkshire, Lucas Neill, Craig Moore, Scott Chipperfield, Vince Grella, Jason Culina, Richard Garcia, Tim Cahill, Mark Bresciano, Josh Kennedy. This is close to being their strongest side with only Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton sitting out.

The next warm-up match will with the US on 5 June. The Socceroos also played a friendly game against New Zealand at the MCG on 24 May which they won 2-1 before they left for South Africa. Since then New Zealand have beaten Serbia in Australia on Saturday which was an unexpected result.