May 19, 2010 - Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria - epa02164745 Dutch national Rafael van der Vaart signs a Panini picturebook during the arrival of the Dutch national soccer team at the Airport in Innsbruck, Austria, 19 May 2010.

Wher­ever you live in the world, how will you be expe­ri­enc­ing the World Cup Final today? Will you be watch­ing it at home? And if so, have you pre­pared any­thing spe­cial for the game such as beers, food or rit­u­als such as watch­ing World Cup games before the final kicks off.

For me, I’ll be spend­ing the morn­ing with my fam­ily before head­ing to Wowies in Boca Raton this after­noon. On the way to the sports bar, I’ll stop by a drug store to pick up some packs of the Panini World Cup stick­ers. And I’ll let my daugh­ters put the stick­ers in the album, which they love doing. Then I’ll prob­a­bly order a beer and sit with friends and fam­ily to watch the World Cup Final. And will keep my fin­gers crossed that it’ll at least be an enter­tain­ing one for the sake of all of the non-believers who will be tun­ing in to give soc­cer another chance.

Share your sto­ries of what you’re plan­ning on doing in the com­ments sec­tion below.

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 Key Player Battles Will Decide Holland vs Spain

Soc­cer City on Sun­day evening will see the show­down of two of the most in form teams in World Foot­ball over the past two years. The Nether­lands boast the supe­rior form record that stretches back to Sep­tem­ber 2008 and sees them unbeaten in 25 matches. The Span­ish are not far behind, and all but for two losses against the United States at last years Con­fed­er­a­tions Cup and against Switzer­land at this years World Cup respec­tively, they would be unbeaten like their Dutch counterparts.

Still Spain’s record can­not be lamented. Suf­fer­ing two losses over a 31 games mea­sures up to Holland’s record and makes it even harder to decide between these two sides on the form guide alone.

In the lead up to the final, and even the third place play­off between Uruguay and Ger­many, it was refresh­ing how the Golden Boot race has been kept alive so deep into the com­pe­ti­tion. Nearly a for­gone con­clu­sion in the 2006 World Cup after the quarter-final stage, this years tour­na­ment has four play­ers vying for the title. Albeit Thomas Müller and Diego For­lán were only able to level with the fore­run­ners David Villa and Wes­ley Snei­jder after their goals in the third place play­off, but the gen­eral race for top goalscorer in South Africa has been a wel­come addi­tion to the over­all plot of the World Cup.

Refer­ring back to Villa and Snei­jder, this duel between these two key play­ers for their respec­tive coun­tries only high­lights the sig­nif­i­cance of them both to their teams. Goals win matches, and the fact that they are in a show­down for not only the Golden Boot, Golden Ball and World Cup itself also speaks vol­umes for their indi­vid­ual abilities.

In the lead up to the final, Snei­jder has come in for some crit­i­cism in rela­tion to his per­for­mances and whether his goal scor­ing tally is merely cast­ing a shadow over his true form. He has admit­tedly assisted few goals through­out the tour­na­ment, but posi­tion­ing is a key asset for any foot­baller and his habit for being in the right place at the right time has rewarded him with goals.

There is, how­ever, no ques­tion over the con­tri­bu­tions of David Villa. In a mis­fir­ing Span­ish front­line, he has been the stand­out per­former and made pas­sage to this stage of the com­pe­ti­tion that bit eas­ier for Spain with his five goals.

Other key per­form­ers that have been an ever-present for their teams through­out the tour­na­ment will also be expected to carry on into the final. At right back for Spain, Ser­gio Ramos has been one of their most con­sis­tent play­ers. He and Dutch left back Gio­vanni van Bron­ck­horst will be in a con­stant bat­tle through­out regard­less which team is attack­ing or defending.

Although he may not be everyone’s favourite player at the moment after being shown up for his par­tic­u­lar style of play, but he and his hold­ing mid­field coun­ter­part Nigel de Jong will be the chief insti­ga­tors required to sti­fle the Span­ish mid­field out of the game, thus cut­ting their pass­ing flow.

Mean­while all this focus has been on play­ers com­ing into this final with form on their side, focus has been prin­ci­pally taken away from those who are strug­gling. Two Pre­mier League stars such as Robin van Per­sie and Fer­nando Tor­res could yet find their feet in this World Cup and sur­prise view­ers by being the deci­sive fac­tor between these two sides.

Repeat­ing key play­ers for each coun­try could be end­less when ref­er­enc­ing these two teams. The main bat­tle will be fought in the open­ing few min­utes of play. This stage of the game will see the Span­ish attempt to dic­tate the pace of the game and put in place their own game plan. If they man­age to gain the ini­tia­tive dur­ing this early part of the game, it will be the true mark of Hol­land as world cham­pi­ons to reverse the influ­ence over the game in their favour.

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new england home jersey England Launches New Home Jersey To Mark a New Era

Times have got­ten so bad for Eng­land and the Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion that they’ve launched a new Eng­land home jer­sey that fea­tures, for the first time, spon­sor­ship on the front of the shirt.

The Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion is in such deep finan­cial trou­ble that they had to resort to not one, but three dif­fer­ent spon­sors to buy space on the front of the jer­sey. A spokesman close to the deal said that the spon­sors rep­re­sent the dawn of a new age in Eng­lish football.

Thanks to Griff for the news tip.

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June 26, 2010 - Rustenburg, South Africa - epa02224550 UEFA president Michel Platini pictured before the start of the the FIFA World Cup 2010 Round of 16 match between USA and Ghana at Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenburg, South Africa, 26 June 2010.

Michel Pla­tini has been rushed to the hos­pi­tal in South Africa after a sus­pected heart attack forced him to keel over while hav­ing din­ner with guests includ­ing Ger­ard Houl­lier and Andy Roxborough.

Accord­ing to reports from The Guardian, Pla­tini was under­stood to be conscious.

Pla­tini last suf­fered a heart prob­lem in 2001, which kept him out of the game for six months.

UPDATE: Reuters is report­ing that Platini’s aide has ruled out a heart attack and is blam­ing Platini’s col­lapse to low blood sugar.

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July 09, 2010 - Oberhausen, Germany - epa02242616 Octopus Paul, soccer oracle of the aquarium 'Sea Life', predicts a victory for Spain in the FIFA 2010 World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain in his basin in Oberhausen, Germany, 09 July 2010. During the feeding, where he had to chose from two seashells, each contained in a plastic box with the Spanish and the Dutch flag on them, Paul picked Spain. The FIFA 2010 World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain takes place on July 11 at Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The most famous cephalo­pod in the world has made his pre­dic­tion for Sunday’s World Cup Final clash between the Nether­lands and Spain. Paul the octo­pus, who cor­rectly pre­dicted all six of Germany’s results dur­ing the World Cup, thinks Spain will win their first tro­phy on Sun­day while Ger­many will claim the bronze for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive tournament.

Paul has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for psy­chic abil­i­ties while on dis­play at the Sea Life Aquar­ium in the west­ern Ger­man city of Ober­hausen. His pre­dic­tions, made by pulling a mus­sel from a tank with a nation’s flag printed on the side, have been flaw­less thus far.

But not every­one loves the gifted octo­pus. Some Argentina fans, unhappy with the eight-legged tank dwellers role in their 4–0 embar­rass­ment in the quar­ter­fi­nals, have made death threats against Paul, threat­en­ing to eat him as revenge. Span­ish prime min­is­ter José Luis Rodríguez Zap­a­tero offered pro­tec­tion to Paul after he cor­rectly pre­dicted Germany’s defeat in the semi-final. “I am con­cerned for the octo­pus … I am think­ing of send­ing him a pro­tec­tive team,” he said with a laugh.

The sen­ti­ment was echoed by Span­ish envi­ron­ment and fish­eries min­is­ter, Elena Espinosa, “On Mon­day, I shall be at the Euro­pean Coun­cil of Min­is­ters and I shall be ask­ing for a [fish­ing] ban on Paul the octo­pus so the Ger­mans do not eat him,” said Espinosa.

But Paul con­tin­ues his punditry, unfazed by his inter­na­tional celebrity. Octo­pus’ only have a life expectancy of about five years but Paul, who is now approach­ing four years old, may still be around to aid odd­s­mak­ers in Euro 2012.

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Ben Shires and the Wrapped Up team are back to wrap up the round in which four teams became two — the 2010 FIFA World Cup semi finals. There’s a trippy recre­ation of the Van Bron­ck­horst goal with com­men­tary from a cou­ple of Dutch ston­ers, PLUS we see why nobody would refuse an offer from Fabio Capello, and more.

Enjoy!

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wowies projection tv Spain vs Netherlands: Where to Watch The Final In South Florida

If you live in South Florida and you’re look­ing for some­where to watch the World Cup Final, Wowies Sports Grill in Boca Raton is the place to be. The mod­ern sports bar will be tele­vis­ing the final between Spain and Nether­lands live on Sun­day at 2:30pm. Plus, Wowies will also be show­ing the Third Place Play­off Final between Uruguay and Ger­many on Sat­ur­day at 2:30pm.

Here are 7 rea­sons why South Florida res­i­dents should watch the final two World Cup games at Wowies:

  1. Dur­ing both games, we’ll be run­ning free raf­fle draw­ings where you have a chance to win, cour­tesy of Nike, offi­cial replica jer­seys from Brazil (home), Por­tu­gal (home), Slove­nia (home), Croa­tia (away) or Slove­nia (away); Plus, we have a US men’s national team train­ing top and sweat­shirt to give away,
  2. We’re giv­ing away in the raf­fle draw­ing, again cour­tesy of Nike, the fol­low­ing soc­cer cleats/boots: Nike Mer­cu­r­ial Vapor Super­fly 2, Nike Zoom and Nike Tiempo Leg­end Elite,
  3. Thanks to EA Sports, we have five copies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup video game to give away (two for Sony PS3 and three for Xbox 360). 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa video game is in stores now and it enables you to take your favorite nation to World Cup glory. It is avail­able on Wii, PS3, x360 and PSP,
  4. Wowies fea­tures a 123″ pro­jec­tion TV and 31 big screen TVs so no mat­ter where you sit, you can watch the World Cup Final in style; Wowies also has three big screen TVs in the out­side cov­ered patio if you want to watch the game and get some fresh air at the same time,
  5. Wowies is the offi­cial World Cup View­ing Party head­quar­ters for World Cup Buzz. I’ll be there for both games, so stop on by and say hello. I’ll also be tak­ing pic­tures and video as well as inter­view­ing some of the soc­cer fans there about the World Cup, so it’s your chance to be fea­tured on World Cup Buzz,
  6. Down­load the flyer from our sis­ter site at www.worldcupbuzz.com/wowies and bring it in for a free Sierra Nevada or Red Stripe Lite dur­ing any of the World Cup games. Plus, Wowies fea­tures Happy Hour from 12-7pm every­day and has three full-liquor bars,
  7. Last but not least, Wowies fea­tures the beau­ti­ful Wowies Girls who will be wear­ing the col­ors of Spain and Nether­lands (red and orange) to cel­e­brate the final and to serve you drinks and food through­out the games.

Based on how pop­u­lar the World Cup games have been at Wowies this sum­mer, I’d highly rec­om­mend that you get to the sports bar as early as pos­si­ble to get a good seat. Come early for lunch and spend the after­noon there. Wowies is a fam­ily friendly estab­lish­ment, and there is no cover to get in to watch the games.

Noth­ing beats watch­ing the World Cup at a soccer-friendly bar with friends and strangers. If you live in South Florida, I look for­ward to see­ing you at Wowies this weekend.

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