2010 World Cup!

Most of America for the past month have been watching the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, which ended Sunday.

This is the first World Cup in which I've watched the whole tournament, and I can say that it was overall a success. You had the favorites winning, the power houses losing, major upsets, controversy with referees, and etc.

We have to start off by talking about the World Cup champs, Spain. They were one of the favorites going into the tournament, and they prevailed as most thought. It wasn't all easy though as the Spanish loss their first game to Switzerland, and on the brink of elimination. However, they managed to control the rest of the tournament, and went undefeated on their way to a World Cup title. Their last four games went by the score of one-nil, enabling Spain to capture their first World Cup title.

Another big team in the tournament was team USA as they surpassed most odds and made it to the knockout round. The two C's are labeled when it comes to team USA's play in this tournament: controversy and comeback. In every game, the Americans gave up an early goal but managed to score one of their own when most thought they couldn't. Even though they lost to Ghana during extra time in the knockout round, I still believe the sky is the limit for this USA team if they make the right moves and get the right players.

Even though in most eyes the World Cup was a success, it was overshadowed by the referees and their lack of making the right calls. Often the refs missed fouls, game winning goals, etc. Every game consistently had at least two or three bad calls from the ref.

Besides the horrible job the refs did, the World Cup was still a success to me.

People who aren't even soccer fans or barely knew the players were so intrigued by this event. I'm not saying soccer will become one of the top sports, but this World Cup brought together many people who rooted for their country and wanted to see them win.

Soccer will never big a time sport in the USA, but when it comes to us against the world, USA all the way.