The Sporting Year-A Yearly Review 1: 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa

As we are fast appraching the end of 2010, a few things in the sports world stayed in our mind. So, let's take some time to review the magical moments in the sporting arena for this week. Here is Paul Riding.

Number one: The 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa.

This year the FIFA World Cup, held from 11th June–11th July, was the first to be held in Africa, and the whole continent embraced the event.

The one thing that could be guaranteed from the World Cup in South Africa was a party atmosphere.

One of the major shocks of the tournament was the fine progress of some of the supposed underdogs as Mexico, Ghana, Japan and Slovakia all made it through the first phase at the expense of some of the more established teams. Defending champions Italy finished bottom of their group, and last time's finalists France bowed out with a whimper, beaten 2-1 by the hosts South Africa.

The progress of Ghana, really captured the continents imagination.

Andy May is a football reporter and TV presenter. He currently works in Spain for Real Madrid TV.

"I think the whole Ghana story was tremendous wasn't it? You had this situation where they came so close to becoming the first African team to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup competition, and it was really good to see, not just South Africa, but the whole of Africa getting behind Ghana because it would have been such a special moment if they did managed to make the semi-finals and then who knows where they could have gone from there."

The real story of the competition was the often sublime performances of eventual world champions Spain.

Spain went in to the tournament as favorites and the number one ranked team in the world as well as the reigning European champions. But they had been perennial underachievers on the world stage, and some were apprehensive about their chances.

"Spain are always a team that have potential, they've always have the class players, but they never fulfill their potential, they always go out in the quarter-finals or the semi-finals. But they did win the European Championship of course, but even after that victory, I don't think really they were one of the cast-iron favorites. Even here in Spain. Everybody obviously wanted them to win and to do well, but I still don't think that they were a team that everybody thought would definitely win the World Cup."

After losing their opening game against Switzerland, the Spaniards edged all the way to the final where they went up against an exciting Holland side.

Spain sealed the victory in extra time to lift the World Cup for the first time and join the distinguished list of World Cup winners.

Spain became the first European team to win a World Cup held outside of Europe and will doubtless be favorites to defend their title in Brazil in 2014.