2010 World Cup Update

"2010 is coming!" This is a common phrase that one can frequently overhear on the streets of South Africa. The World Cup is scheduled and they have been counting down for the last 4 years. While all is not good news and excitement (read this post), there is much to look forward to, not the least of which is an exciting 30 days of international soccer competition.

For those not following the sport, the United States men's soccer team has potential to be very good. Much of their potential depended on their pool draw. Each team is put into a pool with three other teams. They then play round-robin, with the top two teams moving on to the next round. The fear with the US team is that they would be put in a pool with two other juggernauts, as happened to us in the last world cup when we were pooled with Brazil & the Czech Republic.

The draw was held today and while the US opens against one of the World Cup favorites, England, the other two teams in their group, Slovenia & Algeria, are imminently beatable. Hurray for the US!

Our adopted team, the South African boys, drew a more difficult pool, although it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Both Mexico and France are in the same bracket as Bafana-Bafana (meaning "the boys, the boys"). South Africa showed a surprising amount of spunk in the 2009 Confederations Cup in South Africa, pushing perennial favorites Brazil and Spain to the wire. We'll have to wait and see what develops.

If anyone is interested in visiting us during the 2010 World Cup, please contact us. Also, please give lots of money so we can get our new orphanage up and running by time all the excitement arrives:-) If you are interested in reading more about the 2010 World Cup, click this link.



Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town South Africa