The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. The bidding process for hosting the tournament finals was open only to African nations; in 2004, the international football federation, FIFA, selected South Africa over Egypt and Morocco to become the first African nation to host the finals.
The matches were played in ten stadiums in nine host cities around the country, with the final played at the Soccer City stadium in South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg. Thirty-two teams were selected for participation via a worldwide qualification tournament that began in August 2007. In the first round of the tournament finals, the teams competed in round-robin groups of four teams for points, with the top two teams in each group proceeding. These sixteen teams advanced to the knockout stage, where three rounds of play decided which teams would participate in the final.
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War. The current champions are Spain, who won the 2010 tournament.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).
The 19 World Cup tournaments have been won by eight different national teams. Brazil have won five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Cup winners are Italy, with four titles; Germany, with three titles; Argentina and inaugural winners Uruguay, with two titles each; and England, France, and Spain, with one title each.
A World Cup is a type of sporting competition.
World Cup commonly refers to:
World Cup can also refer to:
Robert Sylvester Kelly (born January 8, 1967), better known by his stage name R. Kelly, is an American singer-songwriter and record producer. Often referred to as the King of R&B, Kelly is recognized as one of the most successful R&B artists of all-time. A native of Chicago, Kelly began performing during the late 1980s and debuted in 1992 with the group Public Announcement. In 1993, Kelly went solo with the album 12 Play. He is known for a collection of major hit singles including "Bump n' Grind", "Your Body's Callin'", "I Believe I Can Fly", "Gotham City", "Ignition (Remix)", "If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time", "The World's Greatest", "I'm a Flirt", and the hip-hopera "Trapped in the Closet". In 1998, Kelly won three Grammy Awards for "I Believe I Can Fly".
Kelly has written, produced, and remixed songs for many artists including The Winans, The Isley Brothers, Charlie Wilson, Quincy Jones, K-Ci & JoJo, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Michael Jackson, Hi-Five, Nivea, Ciara, Mary J. Blige, Luther Vandross, Gerald LeVert, Raheem DeVaughn, Ruben Studdard, Jaheim, Kelly Price, Tamia, Maxwell, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Usher, B2K, Twista, Tyrese, Jennifer Lopez, Trey Songz, and others in the U.S. and abroad.