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The 2010 World Cup in South Africa got under way with a spectacular and vibrant opening ceremony at the 94,000-capacity Soccer City in Johannesburg.
The 40-minute ceremony began with a five-plane military fly past over the stadium, before a group of drummers and dancers performed a 'Welcome to Africa' song that included an introduction to all 10 tournament venues.
The next sequence saw a gigantic beetle show off its football skills with the Jabulani prior to large pieces of cloth being used to represent a map of the continent.
Musicians and artists from the other African finalists - Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria - also performed in a joint sequence.
Since it was chosen as the first African host of the World Cup in 2004, South Africa has spent about 40 billion rand (£3.55 billion) on stadiums, transport infrastructure and upgrading airports in the hope of showing off South Africa to an estimated 370,000 visitors and 750 million television viewers in 215 countries.
The organisers couldn't have wished for a better start on the pitch in the melting pot atmosphere of the cooking pot Soccer City stadium. The inspiration for the host nation was Siphiwe Tschabalala, whose name sounds like it could be used by any crazed commentator to describe all future thunderbolts, who opened the scoring for the hosts to send the crowd into a frenzy.
The Bafana Bafana supporters would have been glad that the Jabulani ball did not bend like the proverbial banana and rifled the ball into the top corner past the outstretched hand of Mexican keeper, Perez.
Generally the South African approach play was as laboured as that of the giant dung beetle in the opening ceremony only really threatening consistently when they adopted a long-ball strategy late on. Rafael Marquez intervened on Mexico's behalf to secure the draw their performance at least warranted, momentarily silencing one of the noisiest crowds ever witnessed.
While there were 10,000 spare seats for the opening match, the most notable absentee was Nelson Mandela who withdrew following the death of his 13-year-old granddaughter in a car crash after the opening ceremony.
The subsequent match featuring France and Uruguay will have done nothing to help sell any spare tickets to their next games. The most entertaining aspect of the game came in the post-match press conference when France captain Patrice Evra attempted to blame their below-par performance on the existence of the vuvuzela horns in the crowd.
South Korea dominated against the 2004 European champions Greece and should have scored more than the two goals from Lee Jung-soo and Park Ji-sung. Their well-organised and athletic display systematically dissected the disorganised Greek defence.
In the same group, Argentina twisted and turned their way to a comfortable 1-0 win with World Player of the Year Lionel Messi denied on several occasions by an inspirational performance from Nigerian keeper, Enyeama. The Super Eagles keeper certainly helped the ball manufacturers silence their critics with a string of superb saves.
Conversely, England keeper, Robert Green, was guilty of an error that would have graced any amateur expat football league. With England leading 1-0 thanks to a well taken early finish from Steven Gerrard, Green lost concentration and allowed a seemingly harmless shot from Clint Dempsey to squirm beyond his reach to allow the USA team to claim a share of the spoils. However, both sides will remain confident of progressing having watched their group rivals, despite Slovenia claiming all three points with a 1-0 victory over Arab representatives Algeria.
Germany's World Cup got off to a better-than-expected start with a ruthless demolition of one of Bahrain's qualifying group rivals, Australia. Miroslav Klose went close twice before Podolski and Klose himself opened the scoring. Australia had star player Tim Cahill sent off in the second half although, by then, the damage had been done. Germany went on to notch up a tournament-leading 4-0 victory with the second-youngest side in the tournament, belying their inexperience.
Ghana secured the African continent's first victory with a solid 1-0 victory, courtesy of a successful penalty conversion from Asamoah Gyan following a needless handball from Serbian defender Kuzmanovic. Serbia also suffered from being reduced to 10 men following the sending off of Lucovic for a second bookable offence. Ghana manager, the Serb Milovan Rajevac, was pleased with the dominance the 4-time African champions displayed throughout the match. The Serbs did, however, come close to France in finding excuses for their result, perhaps exceeding them in effort but, as on the pitch, lacking genuine imagination.
The week ahead sees Spain start their campaign against Switzerland at tea-time today (kick-off 5pm) and an intriguing clash between both Group B winners Argentina and South Korea tomorrow at 2.30pm.
England face a must-win clash against Algeria, ahead of which there will be continued debate about the keeper to be selected by Fabio Capello for the game (Friday at 9.30pm). The key match in the group-of-death features Brazil and the Ivory Coast on Sunday at 9.30pm.
