Reuters Soccer Blog

World Cup final live — Spain 1 Dutch 0 – how it happened

We’ve followed every World Cup match live here and it’s now time for the final — the Netherlands v Spain. Join us here for commentary, discussion of the game and the best photos in the world.

Community Blog: Shay’ ivuvuzela, or not

Love it or hate it, the vuvuzela has brought a buzz to the 2010 Word Cup.  Some fans from around the world have embraced this trumpet and are all merrily blowing away at the stadiums.  Some cannot stand it and have asked Fifa to put a stop to the trumpet.

We took a stroll in one of the malls in Johannesburg and did a little survey on what people think about vuvuzelas.

Click here to watch video

Slideshow: Vuvuzela

This blog was written by a community blogger  chosen  to write  on their community’s experience of the  World Cup.

Joburg goes crazy for Bafana Bafana

What started as a hunt for Mexican fans became a front row seat to one of the greatest street parties ever seen in South Africa as World Cup fever cranked up several notches on a sun-kissed afternoon in Johannesburg yesterday.

As I strolled the street looking for sombreros all I could find was a sea of green and gold as tens of thousands proud South Africans roared on their team, passing by in an open top bus.

“Good luck Bafana Bafana!”, “You can do it”, “Impossible is nothing”, read the signs as the blast of the vuvuzelas gave my ears a bashing.

I couldn’t hear much as at no point did the din subside, but I did witness some impromptu soccer skills from a local kid.

“Who needs Lionel Messi when you can have me?” the jubilant youngster cried after an audacious back flick paid off and left his friends open-jawed.

Just a few metres on another local was dancing atop a parked truck in a robotic style, much like England forward Peter Crouch’s goal celebration, while several hundred others below him swayed in rhythm — a bit like a line dance to the “tune” of the vuvuzela.

Spotting anyone not in green and gold was difficult, though there were fans from all over the world milling around me.

Symbolic moment as rugby comes to black township of Soweto

South Africa’s long standing racist past means it still a country of great contrasts but with the change in power and social dynamics come great ironies too.

The latest will be played out on Saturday when the citadel of black South African football, the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, plays host to a Super 14 rugby match involving the Blue Bulls, the team so beloved by the white Afrikaners.

Although it is almost two decades since South Africa’s political changes began, it is the first time a match of this nature is hosted in a black township and represents the potential of dramatic images as thousands of white fans from the country’s most conservative areas head into the biggest black township to watch their team in the semifinals of the Super 14.

For most of the whites it will be their first trip anywhere near Soweto, scene of much of the internal unrest against apartheid in the 1970s and 80s and today rife with crime.

To that end, the Bulls union have laid on trains from Pretoria to the station right outside the Orlando Stadium and will bus in thousands of others, who are being invited to leave their cars several kilometres away from Soweto and use ‘park and ride’ facility.

The Bulls have had to give up home advantage in Pretoria for their semifinal against the Canterbury Crusaders because their cathedral, Loftus Versfeld, is one of the 10 World Cup stadiums and FIFA have taken over the venue to prepare the turf and other facilities before the tournament starts on June 11.

Loftus, also used during last year’s Confederations Cup, will host six World Cup matches, including South Africa’s second encounter of the tournament against Uruguay on June 16.