"South Africa. The Oceania champion (New Zealand) played the 5th Place team from the Asian qualifiers, Bahrain, in a two-legged play-off; New Zealand beat Bahrain to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. The draw for the order in which the two matches would be played was held on 2 June 2009 during the FIFA Congress in Nassau, the Bahamas. The following team from OFC qualified for the final tournament. There were 150 goals scored over 38 games (including the intercontinental play-off), for an average of 3.95 goals per game. 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (OFC) The 2010 FIFA World Cup"
"between Hungary and West Germany. Spain entered the 2010 World Cup as the reigning European Champions, having won UEFA Euro 2008, and as the shared holders of the international football record of consecutive unbeaten games for a national team, spanning 35 matches from 2007 to 2009; they also won all 10 matches of their qualifying campaign. The Netherlands entered the World Cup having won all eight matches in their qualifying campaign. Once at the finals in South Africa, the Netherlands reached the knockout stage as winners of Group E, with three wins out of three against Denmark, Japan and Cameroon,"
"France, traditionally powerful Romania, as well as Austria, Lithuania and the Faroe Islands. Serbia played consistently during the qualifiers and this led to the team automatically qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. They confirmed qualification with a commanding 5–0 win at home against Romania. Like in 2006, Serbia went into the 2010 FIFA World Cup as the dark horses of the tournament. Key points justifying their potential surprise-team status included a star-studded defense that was composed by Nemanja Vidić, Neven Subotić, Aleksandar Kolarov and Branislav Ivanović. The captain of Serbia's 2010 World Cup campaign was stalwart"
"different South American sides in a single World Cup tournament, after the Netherlands in 1974. France are unbeaten in 10 World Cup matches against South American sides (W6 D4), since a 2–1 loss v Argentina in 1978 – the joint longest run alongside Italy (1982 to 2010). <section begin=qf1 /><section end=qf1 /> The teams had met in four previous matches. Their most recent meeting came in a World Cup knockout stage match in 2002, Brazil winning 2–0 to advance to the quarter-finals. That match was also the only time the two sides had previously met in a World Cup. Belgium"
"consecutive title won by a European team, after Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010. In March 2003, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South America for the first time since 1978, in line with its then-active policy of rotating the right to host the World Cup among different confederations. With the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted in South Africa, it would be the second consecutive World Cup outside Europe, which was a first for the tournament. It was also second in the Southern Hemisphere. Only Brazil and Colombia formally declared their candidacy but, after the withdrawal"
"in North African music and dance and, in Southern Africa, Western influences are apparent due to colonization. Fifty-four African countries have football (soccer) teams in the Confederation of African Football. Egypt has won the African Cup seven times, and a record-making three times in a row. Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, and Algeria have advanced to the knockout stage of recent FIFA World Cups. South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup tournament, becoming the first African country to do so. Cricket is popular in some African nations. South Africa and Zimbabwe have Test status, while Kenya is the leading non-test team"
"1992, after 16 years of being banned from FIFA, and 40 years of effective suspension due to the apartheid system. South Africa became the first African nation to host the FIFA World Cup when it was granted host status for the 2010 edition. The team's Siphiwe Tshabalala was also the first player to score in this World Cup during the opening game against Mexico, which was followed by an iconic Macarena-style goal celebration from five South African players. Despite defeating France 2–1 in their final game of the Group Stage, they failed to progress from the first round of the"
"in South Africa in 2010. Serbia's World Cup qualification campaign began in 2008. Their qualification group featured former World Cup winners and 2006 FIFA World Cup runners-up France, traditionally powerful Romania, as well as Austria, Lithuania and the Faroe Islands. Serbia played consistently during the qualifiers and this led to the team automatically qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. They confirmed qualification with a commanding 5–0 win at home against Romania. Like in 2006, Serbia went into the 2010 FIFA World Cup as the dark horses of the tournament. Key points justifying their potential surprise-team status"
"— Brazil Note: Brazil is the only national football team to have played in every World Cup. <br> 16 consecutive FIFA World Cup second round qualifications — Germany <br> 15 competitive games (without friendlies) — Germany <br> <!-- The following is, according to the title of the ref, only the longest *active* unbeaten streak (measured in time instead of matches). I'm sure the actual longest streak is many, many years. A possible candidate is Croatia, which was unbeaten for more than 49 years, from 10 April 1943 (beat Slovakia 1-0) to 5 July 1992 (lost to Australia 0-1 after a"
"to have won consecutive titles (West Indies: 1975 and 1979; Australia: 1999, 2003 and 2007). Australia have also notably featured in 6 finals of the total 9 World Cups, including the last four in a row. England is the only country to have reached the final without ever winning it, having been runners-up three times. The furthest a non-Test playing nation has ever reached is the semi-finals, achieved by Kenya in the 2003 tournament. India is the first host country to have won the world cup on the home ground in 2011.The only other host to reach a Final was"
"in 2010. denotes the best result in the team's history, - the best result at the time of the competition (improved later). Bids: Before the FIFA Congress could vote on the first-ever World Cup host, a series of withdrawals led to the election of Uruguay. The Netherlands and Hungary withdrew, followed by Sweden withdrawing in favour of Italy. Then both Italy and Spain withdrew, in favour of the only remaining candidate, Uruguay. The FIFA Congress met in Barcelona, Spain on 18 May 1929 to ratify the decision, and Uruguay was chosen without a vote. Results: Notice that the celebration of"
"2008 and 2012 and the Olympic football tournament in 1992. The Spanish team went to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa as European Champions and enjoyed a record unbeaten streak of 35 matches from 2007 to 2009. Although they lost their first match against Switzerland by 1-0, they went on to win the group after victories over Honduras and Chile while the Swiss failed to win another match and were eliminated. The Spanish team won all three following knockout matches by 1-0, always scoring in the second half of regular time. The opponents were Portugal, Paraguay and Germany. It"
"Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010. Only one Oceanian qualifier, Australia in 2006, has advanced to the second round. Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany are the only teams to win a World Cup outside their continental confederation; Brazil came out victorious in Europe (1958), North America (1970 and 1994) and Asia (2002). Argentina won a World Cup in North America in 1986, while Spain won in Africa in 2010. In 2014, Germany became the first European team to win in the Americas. Only on five occasions have consecutive World Cups been won by teams from the same continent, and"
"group stage. The first host ever to fail to advance past the first round was South Africa in 2010. † denotes the best result in the team's history, ‡ - the best result at the time of the competition (improved later). The defending World Cup champions were formerly granted an automatic spot in the Cup finals field. As of the 2006 tournament, this berth is no longer guaranteed. However, no defending World Cup champion has yet failed to qualify. Automatic berths have never been given for defending World Cup runners-up. Defending runners-up are 15-for-18 in qualification efforts for the following"
"by a 1–2 defeat to Turkey. Their third match was against Portugal, with Switzerland winning 2–0 to ensure that Portugal would top their group with a defeat. In their first match at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the team defeated eventual champions Spain 1–0 with a goal by Gelson Fernandes, but they were still eliminated in the group stage. In the second match, a goal scored by Mark González in the 75th minute of the game against Chile ended a 559-minute streak without conceding a goal in World Cup matches, beating the record previously held by Italy by nine minutes."
"the world stage in 1992, after years of being banned by FIFA due to the apartheid system. The team has played at seven Africa Cup of Nations tournaments, winning once. The team has also played at three FIFA World Cups including, 1998 in France and 2002 in South Korea and Japan. South Africa became the first African nation to host the FIFA World Cup when it hosted the 19th FIFA World Cup in June 2010. The team's Siphiwe Tshabalala was also the first person to score in this World Cup during the opening game against Mexico. Despite defeating France 2-1"
"9 September 2009, Spain secured its place at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa after beating Estonia 3–0 in Mérida. Spain went on to record a perfect World Cup qualifying record with ten wins out of ten in Group 5, finishing with a 5–2 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina on 14 October 2009. The Spanish team entered the 2010 World Cup ranked number 2 on the FIFA rankings and as clear favorites to win the tournament. ""See also: 2010 FIFA World Cup, 2010 FIFA World Cup Group H and 2010 FIFA World Cup Final"" The 2010 World Cup"
"and 2010 respectively, the first time this has happened in World Cup history. It was also the first time that three consecutive World Cup finals were still tied after 90 minutes. The final marked the first time a World Cup hosted in the Americas was not won by a team from the continent. In the winning German team, Miroslav Klose, who had become the top scorer in World Cup history in the semi-final victory over Brazil, became one of the very few players ever to have won gold, silver and bronze medals in the World Cup (bronze in 2006 and"
"is the earliest and fastest hat-trick in the tournament's history. With further wins over Iraq (1–0) and South Africa (2–0) they earned not only qualification for the semi-finals, but also obtained the world record for 15 consecutive wins and tied the record of 35 consecutive unbeaten games (with Brazil). On 24 June 2009, Spain's undefeated record ended when the United States beat Spain 2–0 in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup semi-finals which sent Spain to the third place match. This was Spain's first defeat since 2006. Spain defeated hosts South Africa 3–2 after extra time in the third-place playoff. On"
"drew 1–1 against eventual finalists France, but lost 2–0 to Switzerland, which knocked them out of the tournament. South Korea won the 2010 World Cup AFC qualification with 16 points – 7 wins and 7 draws in total – making them the only team unbeaten throughout the whole campaign. They then qualified for the knockout stages of the 2010 World Cup Group B with 4 points, winning 2–0 against Greece, losing 4–1 to Argentina and drawing 2–2 with Nigeria. At the knockout stage, they met Uruguay, which ended in a 2-1 loss for South Korea, eliminating them from the tournament."
"tournament in South Africa, as well as having won back-to-back European titles in Euro 2008 and Euro 2012, defeating Germany and Italy in the respective finals, making them the only national team with three major titles in a row. According to this, from 2008 to 2013, the national team won the FIFA Team of the Year, the second-most of any nation, behind only Brazil. Also between November 2006 and June 2009, Spain went undefeated for a record-equalling 35 consecutive matches, a record shared with Brazil. Their achievements have led many experts and commentators to consider the 2008-2012 Spanish squads, among"
"the competition put an end to any complication over the qualifying process for the next round. This was the first time ever that a non-FIFA nation has competed in the World Cup. The closest situation in the past was the case of New Caledonia during the 2006 World Cup qualifiers. However, they were at the time in the process of accession to the organisation, and were eliminated from contention for the finals just days before their final admission to the FIFA family. Papua New Guinea, having initially entered the 2010 World Cup and indicated their intention to enter the South"
"Bulgaria and Morocco, which had participated in the previous 2 finals, failed to qualify, while South Korea set a record by appearing in a fifth successive finals tournament, the first nation from outside Europe or the Americas to achieve this feat. All seven previous World Cup-winning nations (Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy and Uruguay) qualified, which broke the record of most previous champions at a tournament before the record was broken again in 2014. The highest ranked team not to qualify was Colombia (ranked 4th), while the lowest ranked team that did qualify was China PR (ranked 50th). The"
"returned after a 4-year absence. Ethiopia appeared for the first time since 1982 (a 31-year absence). Other teams absent from the 2012 finals that featured in 2013 were Nigeria, Togo, DR Congo, and Algeria. Cape Verde made its finals debut. Teams that didn't qualify for this tournament from the 2012 African Cup of Nations were both co-hosts, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Senegal, Sudan, Guinea and Botswana. South Sudan was ineligible to participate as the qualifying competition had already started by the time its membership of CAF was confirmed. The South African Football Association opened bidding to all 2010 FIFA"
"the Round of 16. The match was later alleged to have been fixed, charges immediately denied by the Ghana Football Association. While for the sixth successive time there was an African team in the Round of 16, Africa remained the only continent (other than Oceania) to never have two teams reach the Round of 16 at the same World Cup. The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the first time the World Cup was staged in Africa, with South Africa being the hosts. Their national team became the first World Cup hosts to get knocked out in the first round. Nigeria,"
"well as the 1986 edition, Burkina Faso in 1998, 2006, Ghana in 2008 and Angola in 2010 edition. Egypt has also been as high as ninth in the FIFA World Rankings, making the team one of only three African national teams to enter the world's top ten. Despite their respectable continental record, Egypt has so far made only three appearances in the World Cup (in 1934, 1990 and 2018), failing to win a game on all three occasions. The Egypt national team was the first team not from the Americas or Europe to qualify for the World Cup. Egypt qualified"
"least one of Brazil, Italy, Germany or Argentina. Germany defeated Uruguay 3–2 to secure third place. Germany holds the record for most third-place finishes in the World Cup (4), while Uruguay holds the record for most fourth-place finishes (3). The final was held on 11 July 2010 at Soccer City, Johannesburg. Spain defeated the Netherlands 1–0, with an extra time goal from Andrés Iniesta. Iniesta scored the latest winning goal in a FIFA World Cup final (116'). The win gave Spain their first World Cup title, becoming the eighth team to win it. This made them the first new winner"
"2010 FIFA World Cup Final The 2010 FIFA World Cup Final (also known as the Battle of Johannesburg) was a football match that took place on 11 July 2010 at Soccer City in Johannesburg, South Africa, to determine the winner of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Spain defeated the Netherlands 1–0 with a goal from Andrés Iniesta four minutes from the end of extra time. English referee Howard Webb was selected to officiate the match, which was marked by an unusually high number of yellow cards. With both the Netherlands and Spain attempting to win their first FIFA World Cup,"
"2010 FIFA World Cup Group A Group A of the 2010 FIFA World Cup began on 11 June and ended on 22 June 2010. The group consisted of France, Mexico, Uruguay and the host nation South Africa. France and South Africa previously met at the 1998 FIFA World Cup; France beat South Africa 3–0. France and Uruguay previously met at the 2002 FIFA World Cup; the match ended 0–0. France and Mexico were in the same group in the first tournament in the 1930 FIFA World Cup; the two nations played the first ever World Cup match, and France won"
"results, the teams had met nine times previously since 1920, winning four games each and drawing once, in either friendlies, European Championship qualifying games, and once in the 1920 Summer Olympics. It was the first time since the 1978 final that neither of the finalists had previously won the World Cup. The Netherlands were runners-up twice before, losing 2–1 to West Germany in 1974, and 3–1 (after extra time) to Argentina in 1978. Reaching the 2010 final was Spain's best performance in the World Cup, having previously finished fourth in 1950 when the tournament had a round-robin final stage, and"
"without a single win. France only managed a scoreless draw against Switzerland and a 1–1 draw against South Korea. With captain Zinedine Zidane suspended, their 2–0 win against Togo was enough for them to advance to the knockout round. They were joined by the group winners, Switzerland, who defeated South Korea 2–0, and did not concede a goal in the tournament. South Korea won their first World Cup finals match outside their own country in defeating Togo, but four points were not enough to see them through to the round of 16 (the only team for which this was the"
"group stage against Brazil on 25 June 2010 at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban ended in a goalless 0–0 while both teams advanced to the knockout stage. Portugal was on a 19 match undefeated streak, conceding only 3 goals. The Portuguese defence ended being broken by Spain's David Villa's goal which defeated Portugal in the round of 16, 1–0. During the Tournament, Queiroz was frequently criticised for setting up the team in an overly cautious way. The team's style of play was to keep the team well closed in the back, while sending direct balls up to the front,"
"Group F alongside three underdog teams: Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia. At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, reigning champions Italy were unexpectedly eliminated in the first round, finishing last place in their group. After being held to 1–1 draws by Paraguay and New Zealand, they suffered a 3–2 loss to Slovakia. It was the first time Italy failed to win a single game at a World Cup finals tournament, and in doing so became the third nation to be eliminated in the first round while holding the World Cup crown; the first being Brazil in 1966 and the"