Last night was the European Football Championship semi-finals, Germany against Italy. I was excited to be in Stuttgart and watched the first half of the match with the crowd gathered in the Biergarten im Schlossgarten Stuttgart. Unfortunately, the outcome was not in Germany's favor, but the fans were amazingly spirited.
A World Cup weekend
The World Cup is off to a great start and South Korea has probably been my favorite so far. In 2006 I was watching in Seoul and couldn't believe the enthusiasm of the Korean fans, crowded onto the streets to watch the matches and celebrate together. They were probably quite happy about the great start yesterday, visualized above by The Guardian's Twitter replay, which shows the reactions on Twitter for each game (via Ardy)
I celebrated the kick off to the 2010 tournament in Amsterdam at the Tropenmuseum, along with the opening of the exhibition Africa Scores!
Germany plays today and I will be cheering along. Unfortunately Biergarten Die Heimat, which hosted fantastic screenings for the 2008 European Cup, is no longer open. Two nice alternatives are Biergarten De Goede Hoop and Trouw. Viel Glück Deutschland!
Twenty Ten: Spotlight on African journalism
The recently launched website Twenty Ten provides an African perspective of football, its social and cultural role in Africa and the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. The site showcases photography, text, radio and multimedia content created by African journalists. I highly recommend the multimedia production Our Soweto pitch by Samantha Reinders, the photo series Arab representation by Mohamed Abdou and the radio broadcast Football and academics by Rosemary Mroba Gaisie.