Vuvuzela South Africa

The word Vuvuzela appears in the  new edition of the Oxford dictionary – along with words like climate change, national treasure and toxic debt.

According to The Guardian “Football fans will perhaps be unsurprised to learn that the vuvuzela, whose apian drone soundtracked yet another summer of hurt, has blared its way into the dictionary’s pages. By being ushered into the dictionary, which is based on how language is really used, the metre-long plastic horn has cemented its immortality as well as its ubiquity.”

#vuvuzela Top Trend on Twitter

Those of us who tweeted throughout the 2010 World Cup won’t really be surprised because we kept #vuvuzela trending in the Top 10 on Twitter practically throughout the tournament. Those of us who love the vuvuzela, and those who hated it – the more they mentioned it, the  more we smiled, as we watched #vuvuzela climb up the trends every day.

I thought I’d refresh your minds with a few Vuvuzela related posts form the World Cup:

Vuvuzela – the Word of the 2010 World Cup

Vuvuzela now in DOOM (video)

YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button

YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button

Popularity: 3% [?]

Get your Paul the Octopus iPhone App (unofficial) and you will have predictions in the palm of your hand – so to speak.

It was just a matter of time before someone jumped on the very popular bandwagon of Paul the Psychic Octopus who made a string of winning predictions in the recent 2010 World Cup. Besides the vuvuzela, I think Paul the Octopus became one the the icons of this tournament.

According to Mashable, the German Octopus is back in the form of an iOS app that makes predictions about anything you want it to, not just football.

The uTouchLabs-developed app is called “” [iTunes link] and it’s available in the App Store for the iPhone , iPod touch and iPad (though it doesn’t have a special iPad version).

Ask the Octopus

Before you rush off to install this Paul the Octopus iPhone app, called Ask the Octopus, I just want to warn you that is is just a game, you are not going to get Lotto numbers or pick a winner on the sixth race. But it is fun to play with and, hey it’s quite a talking point.

A good recipe for World Cup withdrawal: install the Ask the Octopus iPhone App and the Vuvuzela iPhone App and you’ll get that 2010 World Cup feeling all over again.

After all Vuvuzela was the WORD for the 2010 World Cup.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Vuvuzela is the word of the 2010 World Cup, would you want to know it? Not Jabulani, although I think the name of the energetic ball of happiness is probably a close second or third.

No, I’m not suffering from post World Cup euphoria. I read this on the Web so it must be true.

Vuvuzela – Biggest Impact on 2010 World Cup

Linguists in more than 60 countries voted that the vuvuzela is the word “that has made the biggest impact on the 2010 World Cup, and that it will be best remembered for”.

“Long after individual matches and goals are forgotten, this will be remembered as the Vuvuzela World Cup,” said Jurga Zilinskiene, managing director of London-based firm Today Translations a London-based translation company with a network of 2, 600 linguists in over 60 countries, on Media 24.com.

“Vuvuzela” was chosen by 75% of more than 320 linguists from over 60 countries, who were asked to choose the word with the biggest impact on the tournament.

Vuvuzela Landslide Victory

Vuvuzela won a landslide victory in a survey of linguists conducted by Today Translations,

In second place was Waka, after the official World Cup song by Shakira and the South African group, Freshlyground.

In joint third place were Jabulani, the official match ball of the tournament, Zakumi, the official World Cup mascot, and Bafana, the nickname of the South African national soccer team.  (By the way whatever happened to Zakumi?

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Golden Ball nominees have been announced for the 2010 World Cup. The adidas Golden Ball is the official FIFA trophy for the “Best Player of the Tournament”.

Everybody has their favorite player, but there have been a few players who have certainly stood out during this tournament, no matter what team you have been supporting.

The ten nominated players for the Golden Ball were selected by the FIFA Technical Study Group that includes football experts such as Kalusha Bwalya, Christian Karembeu, Jomo Sono and Gérard Houllier.

Nominees for the Golden Ball

Nominees for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ adidas Golden Ball trophy are:

• Diego Forlan (URU)
• Asamoah Gyan (GHA)
• Andres Iniesta (ESP)
• Lionel Messi (ARG)
• Mesut Oezil (GER)
• Arjen Robben (NED)
• Bastian Schweinsteiger (GER)
• Wesley Sneijder (NED)
• David Villa (ESP)
• Xavi (ESP)

Accredited media representatives will vote to determine the winners of the adidas Golden, Silver and Bronze ball awards on FIFA.com. The winners will be announced after the final on 11 July.

adidas Golden Ball past winners

1982 FIFA World Cup™ Spain: Paolo Rossi (Italy)
1986 FIFA World Cup™ Mexico: Diego Maradona (Argentina)
1990 FIFA World Cup™ Italy: Salvatore Schillaci (Italy)
1994 FIFA World Cup™ USA: Romario (Brazil)
1998 FIFA World Cup™ France: Ronaldo (Brazil
2002 FIFA World Cup™ Korea / Japan: Oliver Kahn (Germany)
2006 FIFA World Cup™ Germany: Zinedine Zidane (France)

Read more about the Golden Ball  nominees  on FIFA’s Website

Image: golden Ball trophy fifa .com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Today is the last Football Friday of the 2010 World Cup. It seems like it all want past in a multi-coloured blur of excitement and amazing soccer.

Bafana Bafana makes South Africa Proud

We waited so long from that first announcement that South Africa would host the 2010 World Cup, the first on African soil, to the kickoff, just four weeks ago on 11 June at Soccer City in Jozi when Bafana Bafana held Mexico to a draw and Sipiwe Tshabalala score one of the most beautiful goals of the entire 2010 World Cup –in fact  the first goal of the tournament. (I’d show you the video, but FIFA has copyright and has taken all the copies off YouTube).

Do we even remember that Football Fridays were a campaign of Brand SA to get the country behind Bafana Bafana and to catch some “gees” for the 2010 World Cup. It took off quite slowly, with only die-hard soccer supporters and a patriotic few sporting yellow jerseys. At first, the jerseys were really hard to get and they were very expensive.

Vuvuzelas, Mirror Socks, and Flags

As we got closer to the big even, more jerseys and T-shirts came onto the market and Fridays became decidedly more yellow. Vuvuzelas started appearing all over the place – really cheap and in many colours.

Then the flags came out and the mirror socks and before we new it South Africa was swept up in a Bafana Bafana and World Cup frenzy like nobody had ever expected.

People were writing to me asking me where they could buy a vuvuzela. Flags and mirror socks were available at almost every traffic light and on the roadside and South Africa exploded into colour as the visitors arrived for the tournament.

I have never seen so many flags – car flags – flags hanging out of windows, strung up on masts, painted on faces…. everywhere. And one could hear the paaarp of vuvuzelas all over.

Waka Waka Official World Cup Song

I never really got the diski dance, but it wasn’t long before I got fully into the Waka Waka Official World Cup song and was going Waka Waka to everybody. (I must admit I wasn’t happy at first – nothing against Shakira, but hey we have awesome singers in South Africa)

Last Football Friday

And now that it is the last Football Friday, and we have only two more matches left, let us make a commitment not to stop flying the flag… Can we keep flying the flag,  just for a little bit longer?

OK there won’t be anymore Football Fridays where you can just go up and greet and chat to anyone in a yellow jersey, ’cause you know you have something in common.

But maybe Fridays can just sort of unofficially become a day that we greet one or two strangers and say Yebo or Howzit! – Just for the sake of the beautiful game man!

Check out some cool Football Friday Pics at AwesomeSA

Popularity: 5% [?]