Vintage Stamps for World Cup Countries

My life the last week has revolved almost entirely around football and the World Cup. Posting photos and stories from South Africa on Twenty Ten, arranging the last-minute details for my flight to Johannesburg on Saturday morning and watching as many matches as I can handle. I enjoyed this artistic approach to the World Cup fever by Karen Horten. She gathered together vintage stamps from the countries: "Most of the postage stamps below are from between 1900 through the mid-1930s, with a few as recent as the early 1970s."

These are some of my favorites, but there are lots more here (via constantwanderlust: dailydesigndiscoveries)

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!

The Countdown Begins

Just one week left until the 2010 World Cup kicks off in South Africa. I'll be heading to Johannesburg during part of the championships (yea!) to work with the journalists from Twenty Ten, who will be providing a uniquely African view of the event with multimedia productions, articles, radio broadcasts and lots of beautiful photography.

The above image is from a photo series by the South African photographer Simone Scholtz called Transformations, which captures the evolution of Black Stars fans from average Ghanaians to painted supporters ready to cheer their team on.

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.