Curious facts about the 2010 World Cup

June 14, 2010 - PRLog -- Conceived by FIFA in 1904, the World Cup’s first tournament was held in 1930 in Uruguay, which as the host nation became the first world champions.

Brazil has won the World Cup on five occasions, more than any other nation. They won in 1958 in Sweden, 1962 in Chile, 1970 in Mexico, 1994 in the U.S. and 2002 in South Korea and Japan.

Here are some curious facts about some of the 736 players from the 32 Nationals playing in the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa;

North Korea's striker Kim Myong-Won was registered in the competition as a goalkeeper. However, according to FIFA, the player can only play in the 2010 World Cup as a goalkeeper.

The tallest player in World Cup 2010 is Serbia striker Nikola Zigic who is 2.02 m tall, only one inch taller than another striker from England, Peter Crouch. On the opposite end, England also has the shortest registered player in the World Cup in South Africa.

Midfielder Aaron Lennon at only 1.65m is proof that soccer is a great sport for all sizes of men and women. Lennon is one centimeter shorter than four players called up for their teams in South Africa 2010: Clemente Rodriguez of Argentina, Danilo Turcios and Walter Martinez of Honduras and defender Arthur Boka of Ivory Coast, all 1.66m tall.

The oldest player in the 2010 World Cup is the English goalkeeper David James who is 39 years and ten months old. The youngest player is the Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen, just 18 years old.

Serbian midfielder Dejan Stankovic who won the Champions League this year with Inter Milan, also has an interesting World Cup history: He will participate for his third National team in three different World Cups.

In 1998, Stankovic played for Yugoslavia. Eight years later he played for Serbia and Montenegro, the remaining republics of former country of Yugoslavia. After the independence of Montenegro, the Inter Milan player will play for Serbia, making Dejan Stankovic the first player in World Cup history to play for three different Nations.

The most popular player in the internet search engines is Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal with 24 million page views in Google alone. He is followed by Kaká of Brazil with 20 million, Lionel Messi of Argentina with 10 million and Wayne Rooney of England with 8 million.

You can read the rest of the article showing dozens of other World Cup records as well as  news and information about Cristiano Ronaldo at: http://2010-southafrica.com/latest-news/curious-facts-abo...

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This website was made to bring you news and information about Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portugal captain and Real Madrid football star, the Spanish League Championship games as well as the 2010 World Cup where he will be playing from 11 June and hopefully till 11 July 2010.