Spain Wins The World Cup 2010

South Africa hosts the FIFA WORLD CUP 2010

32 teams qualified to play in the World Cup. Teams were split into 8 groups and they play each team in their group during the first round of the tournament, known as “the Group stage”. Here they are:

Group A – South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay and France
Group B – Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic and Greece
Group C – England, USA, Algeria and Slovenia
Group D – Germany, Australia, Serbia and Ghana
Group E – Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and Cameroon
Group F – Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia
Group G – Brazil, Korea DPR, Cote d’Ivoire and Portugal
Group H – Spain, Switzerland, Honduras and Chile


Well done to Spain winning world cup.

What made me think it would have been Argentina....maybe something to do with Diego Maradona

Not surprising England was a total let down as expected

This is my Dream Team of the WORLD CUP 2010
Goalkeeper : Manuel Neuer (Germany)
Defence : Fábio Coentrao(POR), Maicon(BRA), Philipp Lahm (GER), Gerard Pique (SPA)
Midfield : Arjen Robben(NED), Xavi(SPA), Wesley Sneijder (NED), Lionel Messi (ARG)
Forward : David Villa(SPA), Diego Forlan(URU),


Now that the WORLD CUP has finished lets look at some stats As the dust settles on an unforgettable and historic FIFA World Cup™, FIFA.com reflects on some of the key statistics to have emerged over the past month.

669 passes were attempted by Xavi during the tournament, 104 more than his nearest challenger, Bastian Schweinsteiger. Xavi also delivered the second-highest number of crosses with 42, with only Diego Forlan (50) attempting more.

145 goals were scored at South Africa 2010, the lowest of any FIFA World Cup since the tournament switched to a 64-game format. Indeed, the current edition continues a downward trend in this respect since the first 64-game finals were held 12 years ago, with France 1998’s total of 171 goals dwindling to 161 at Korea/Japan 2002 and then to 147 at Germany 2006.

117 minutes was the time at which Andres Iniesta struck against the Netherlands, making his dramatic winner the latest-ever winning goal in a FIFA World Cup Final.

39 years and 330 days old, David James was the most senior player of this FIFA World Cup.

Christian Eriksen was South Africa 2010’s youngest player at 18 years and 120 days old.

31 solo runs established Spain’s Sergio Ramos as the tournament’s most prolific dribbler, ahead of more likely candidates such as Lukas Podolski (27), Andres Iniesta (26), David Villa and Lionel Messi (both 25).

22 goals at Green Point Stadium made the Cape Town arena the highest-scoring of South Africa's ten venues. Johannesburg's Soccer City ranked second with 20.

19 fouls made Japan’s Keisuke Honda an unlikely leader of the competition’s crime count. Finalists Sergio Ramos and Mark van Bommel followed closely behind on 17.

14 FIFA World Cup goals was the landmark reached by Miroslav Klose, leaving the Germany striker one behind record-holder Ronaldo but nonetheless in joint-second place with Gerd Muller.

14 yellow and red cards were handed out in a fiery Final between the Netherlands and Spain, more than doubling the previous record for this fixture, set when Argentina and West Germany shared six cards in 1986.

12 goals were scored by Bayern Munich players during South Africa 2010, making the Bavarian giants the best-represented club in the scoring charts. Bayern’s European conquerors, Inter Milan, were next-highest on nine, while Atletico Madrid players accounted for eight. The Spanish league dominated overall, with 29 goals to 21 for the Bundesliga, 12 for the English Premier League and 16 for Serie A.

9 hours and 19 minutes without conceding enabled Switzerland to set a new FIFA World Cup record. The Helvetians surpassed Italy’s previous record of 550 minutes.

3.18 million fans attended South Africa 2010’s 64 matches, just short of the FIFA World Cup record set when 3.59 million clicked through the turnstiles at USA 1994.

3 players – David Villa, Andres Iniesta and Carles Puyol – accounted for Spain’s entire haul of goals at South Africa 2010. Previously, no team had ever won the FIFA World Cup with fewer than four different goalscorers. La Roja’s overall tally of eight was the lowest of any world champions in history.

2 draws and a defeat from three group games made Italy’s performance in South Africa their worst-ever FIFA World Cup showing. Never before had they failed to win a single match, or finished bottom of their group. Marcello Lippi’s side remain winless in 2010.

2 minutes and 39 seconds was the time at which Thomas Muller scored the tournament’s fastest goal in Germany’s 4-0 win over Argentina.

1 team finished the tournament unbeaten: New Zealand.

The Lost City Of Atlantis

Truth Or Myth


The idea of a lost, but highly advanced civilization has captured the interest of people for centuries. Perhaps the most compelling of these tales is the story of Atlantis. The story appears again and again in books, television shows and movies. Where did the story originate and is any of it true?





Ever since Greek philosopher Plato described the lost Atlantis in his works Timaeus and Critias, debate has raged as to whether it ever existed.

Lost cities have captured the imaginations of many throughout time. The idea that a whole civilization could have vanished without a trace has both fascinated and challenged.



Plato's Atlantis
The story of the lost continent of Atlantis starts in 355 B.C. with the Greek philosopher Plato. Plato had planned to write a trilogy of books discussing the nature of man, the creation of the world, and the story of Atlantis, as well as other subjects. Only the first book was ever completed. The second book was abandoned part way through, and the final book was never even started.


Plato used dialogues to express his ideas. In this type of writing, the author's thoughts are explored in a series of arguments and debates between various characters in the story. Plato often used real people in his dialogues, such as his teacher, Socrates, but the words he gave them were his own.


In Plato's book, Timaeus, a character named Kritias tells an account of Atlantis that has been in his family for generations. According to the character, the story was originally told to his ancestor, Solon, by a priest during Solon's visit to Egypt.


There had been a powerful empire located to the west of the "Pillars of Hercules" (what we now call the Straight of Gibraltar) on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. The nation there had been established by Poseidon, the God of the Sea. Poseidon fathered five sets of twins on the island. The firstborn, Atlas, had the continent and the surrounding ocean named for him. Poseidon divided the land into ten sections, each to be ruled by a son, or his heirs.


The capital city of Atlantis was a marvel of architecture and engineering. The city was composed of a series of concentric walls and canals. At the very center was a hill, and on top of the hill a temple to Poseidon. Inside was a gold statue of the God of the Sea showing him driving six winged horses.


About 9000 years before the time of Plato, after the people of Atlantis became corrupt and greedy, the gods decided to destroy them. A violent earthquake shook the land, giant waves rolled over the shores, and the island sank into the sea, never to be seen again.


So, is the story of Atlantis just a fable used by Plato to make a point? Or is there some reason to think he was referring to a real place? Well, at numerous points in the dialogues, Plato's characters refer to the story of Atlantis as "genuine history" and it being within "the realm of fact." Plato also seems to put into the story a lot of detail about Atlantis that would be unnecessary if he had intended to use it only as a literary device.


On the other hand according to the writings of the historian Strabo, Plato's student Aristotle remarked that Atlantis was simply created by Plato to illustrate a point. Unfortunately, Aristotle's writings on this subject, which might have cleared the mystery up, have been lost eons ago.


Location, Location, Location
If we make the assumption that Atlantis was a real place, it seems logical that it could be found west of the Straight of Gibraltar near the Azores Islands. In 1882 a man named Ignatius Donnelly published a book titled Atlantis, the Antediluvian World. Donnelly, an American politician, had come to the belief that Plato's story represented actual historical fact. He located Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the Azores Islands represented what remained of the highest mountain peaks. Donnelly said he had studied zoology and geology and had come to the conclusion that civilization itself had begun with the Atlantians and had spread out throughout the world as the Atlantians established colonies in places like ancient Egypt and Peru. Donnelly's book became a world-wide best seller, but researchers could not take Donnelly's theories seriously as he offered no proof for his ideas.


As time when on it became obvious that Donnelly's theories were faulty. Modern scientific surveys of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean shows it is covered with a blanket of sediment that must have taken millions of years to accumulate. There is no sign of a sunken island continent.


Are there any other candidates for the location of Atlantis? People have made cases for places as diverse as Switzerland, in the middle of Europe, and New Zealand, in the Pacific Ocean. The explorer, Percy Fawcett, thought that it might be located in Brazil. One of the most convincing arguments, though, came from K.T. Frost, a professor of history at the Queen's University in Belfast. Later, Spyridon Marinatos, an archaeologist, and A.G. Galanopoulos, a seismologist, added evidence to Frost's ideas.


The Minoan Connection
Frost suggested that instead of being west of the Pillars of Hercules, Atlantis was east. He also thought that the catastrophic end of the island had come not 9000 years before Plato's time, but only 900. If this was true, the land of Atlantis might already be a well-known place even in Plato's time: the island of Crete.


Crete is now a part of modern Greece and lies just south of Athens across part of the Mediterranean Sea. Before 1500 B.C. it was the seat of the Minoan Empire. The Minoans dominated the eastern Mediterranean with a powerful navy and probably extracted tribute from other surrounding nations. Archaeological excavations have shown that Minoan Crete was probably one of the most sophisticated cultures of its time. It had splendid architecture and art. A code of laws gave women equal legal status to men. Agriculture was highly developed and an extensive irrigation system existed.


Then, seemingly in a blink of an eye, the Minoan Civilization disappeared. Geological studies have shown that on an island we now know as Santorinas, located just ten miles to the north of Crete, a disaster occurred that was very capable of toppling the Minoan state.


Santorinas today is a lush Mediterranean paradise consisting of several islands in a ring shape. Twenty-five hundred years ago, though, it was a single large island with a volcano in the center. The volcano blew itself apart in a massive explosion around 1500 B.C.


To understand the effect of such an explosion, scientists have compared it with the most powerful volcanic explosion in historic times. This occurred on the Island of Krakatoa in 1883. There a giant wave, or tsunami, 120 feet high raced across the sea and hit neighboring islands, killing 36,000 people. Ash thrown up into the air blackened the skies for three days. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as 3,000 miles.


The explosion at Santorinas was four times as powerful as Krakatoa.


The tsunami that hit Crete must have traveled inland for over half a mile, destroying any coastal towns or cities. The great Minoan fleet of ships were all sunk in a few seconds. Overnight the powerful Minoan Empire was crushed and Crete changed to a political backwater. One can hardly imagine a catastrophe more like Plato's description of Atlantis' fate than the destruction of Crete.


Many of the details of the Atlantis story fit with what is now known about Crete. Women had a relatively high political status, both cultures were peaceful, and both enjoyed the unusual sport of ritualistic bullfighting (where an unarmed man wrestled and jumped over a bull).


If the fall of the Minoans is the story of Atlantis, how did Plato get the location and time wrong? Galanopoulos suggested there was a mistake during translation of some of the figures from Egyptian to Greek and an extra zero added. This would mean 900 years ago became 9000, and the distance from Egypt to "Atlantis" went from 250 miles to 2,500. If this is true, Plato (knowing the layout of the Mediterranean Sea) would have been forced to assume the location of the island continent to be squarely in the Atlantic Ocean.

Not everyone accepts the Minoan Crete theory of the story of Atlantis, but until a convincing case can be made for some other place, it, perhaps, remains science's best guess.
The riddle of Atlantis will only be solved after extensive exploration. However, with no exact location, it may be some time before the ocean reveals it’s secrets.