Ryan Cooper

I find it extremely hard to believe it was actually an entire year ago that me and my friends embarked on an epic whirlwind tour around South Africa.  Now one of those friends is married, fergawdsake!  Pierre de Vos looks back : It is exactly one year ago that I bought my first Vuvuzela at my local Spar and discovered what a beautiful racket I could make with that piece of plastic, donned my Bafana Bafana shirt and joined friends in the city to watch our team take on Mexico in the opening game of the Soccer World Cup. That was the day Simphiwe Tshabalala scored the glorious opening goal of the World Cup and South Africa suddenly turned into the country we all wished we had lived in all our lives. Almost all the professional whiners – of which our nation seems to have more than its fair share – fell silent while almost all of us marveled at our ability to put on the show of our lives. Reports of corruption and nepotism disappeared from the front pages of our newsp...

While not the most exciting game, this was one that Spain deserved to win. They played better than I've seen them in the whole tournament. Germany, while they played well, showed little of the devastating power that saw them obliterate Argentina, perhaps because of Mueller's absence. In any case, the final should be fantastic. No matter who wins, it will be a country that has never gotten the cup before, and I heartily support that. In fact, this is the first time that Spain has even made it to the semifinals. Sports Illustrated called the final for them--we'll see what happens. All in all, I've been much more pleased with the quality of play and games so far than in 2006. Let's hope it stays that way.

Wow. Federer lost to Robin Soderling, a Swede, the man who upset Rafael Nadal last year. This ends Federer's streak of 23 consecutive Grand Slam competitions where he made at least the semifinals. I was watching it on a live chat, which was not the most straightforward way to experience it, but it was still pretty gripping.