The music begins, the two teams walk onto the pitch along with their respective mascots,

and the national anthems are sung. The crowds roar, and the vuvuzelas buzz away. The players of the two teams then take their respective positions. There is a sharp blast from the referees whistle and the game begins. The lush green rectangular patch of synthetic grass is now scattered with football players running around, dodging tackles, defending their goalpost and persevering in the art of netting the ball into the opponents goalpost, playing for their country in hope of taking home the World Cup. The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the nineteenth FIFA World Cup to be organized till date and this time South Africa was the nation blessed with the opportunity of hosting this enormous event and also was the first African nation to do so. The tournament lasted exactly a month, from the eleventh of June to the eleventh of July, with thirty-two teams participating. The opening and closing matches were held in the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg which was erected especially for the World Cup. The stadium was in the form of a calabash, a traditional African cooking pot. The official mascot for the World Cup was Zakumi a leopard with green hair, whose colours reflected that of South Africas team jersey which were green and yellow. The official song Waka-Waka was sung by Columbian singer Shakira and even progressed to become one of the most downloaded songs online. Adidas was the sports brand that produced the match ball which was christened as Jabulani meaning bringing joy to everyone in Zulu. The 2010 FIFA World Cup was expected to be the most widely watched game in history with a number of sports channels broadcasting it worldwide and, as usual, India too refused to miss out on the football extravaganza. Everyday, families and friends faithfully stopped work or any other activity just to catch a glimpse of the beautiful game. In every locality, cheers rang through the air when the favorites for the day scored and boos erupted when the opponent did. Neighbourhoods were even decorated with their favorite teams colours, which were mostly either blue and white for Argentina or green and yellow for Brazil. The theme song, Waka Waka, could be heard on the lips of every man, woman and child and was aired on the popular music channels on television and on the radio as well. However, as enjoyable as the World Cup was, no one could ignore the continuous, not to mention loud, droning of the vuvuzelas. On normal television volume, the sound of these plastic horns was enough to give anyone a headache and if the volume was low, one could not hear the commentary. The vuvuzelas even managed to drown out the cheering of the crowds in the stadium and the players themselves also complained of distractions caused by the awful buzzing. Sadly, though, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and this certainly did not spare the World Cup. The curtains came down on the World Cup with the final match being played between Spain and The Netherlands, Spain being the favourites to win. To everyones delight, except mine, Spain took home the Cup with the final score being 1-0 and this saw Spain as the first European nation ever to win the World Cup. At the closing ceremony, Shakira once again performed the football anthem as well as worldwide hit and even the former South-African President Nelson Mandela made an appearance for the world cup final. With the close of this gigantic event, life has gone back to normal with everyone carrying on with their usual activities. For one month the whole world was united with everyone watching the World Cup regardless of whether they were football fans or not. The next World Cup will be hosted by Brazil in fours years. The

world will come together as one again, but without the nuisance of those horrible vuvuzelas!