Final guesses, with Zing!

Spain vs. Netherlands, 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday

Against the midfield duo of snarling Marc Van Bommel and Nigel De Jong, Spain figure not to have as much of the ball as they've had in previous – if they do, it could be a long night for the Dutch. The Spanish got great work out of Pedro against Germany, in for Fernando Torres, and will almost certainly come back with the young Barcelona forward again. This one shapes up to be pretty even, with the teams' top scorers David Villa and Wesley Sneijder on five goals apiece – at least before Saturday's third-place game, that total put them sharing the lead for the Golden Boot. And in Arjen Robben and Sneijder, Netherlands has a 1-2 of experience, guile and muscling creativity the likes of which Spain has yet to see here. Very close.

Chris Young's pick: Spain 2, Netherlands 1
Cathal Kelly's pick: Spain 1, Netherlands 2

And whoever wins, here's hoping we get a final with some Zing!:

World Cup on song: Jack Parow

We have a stalker here. His name's Jack Parow, and he's blasting his way into my eardrums and skull.
I just turned on the SA music channels now, and of course the Afrikaans rapper, a sort of SA Eminem, was on. He's always on, it seems. No complaints from here. It wasn't Dans Dans Dans, No. 1 on MK's weekly countdown and still the best thing i've seen/heard here, but the novelty ditty Blaas Jou Vuvuzela.
There's a lot of wicked music here, from the likes of Crosby Syasanga Bolani, Flash Republic, Gazelle, BLK JKS – but there's only one Jack Parow, my stalker, my SA find to bring home and enjoy:

World Cup on song: Germany

Last of our final four, but not least, this one was the anthem of Germany 2006 on the trains and at the Brandenburg Gate. It's Sportfreunde Stiller's 1954 74 90 2006, and it works as well now as it did then, taking you on a wry trip through the Mannschaft's three World Cup titles (keep an eye out around the 2:15 mark for the infamous Rudi Voeller-Frank Rikjaard double expulsion 20 years ago, with its greetings and salivations moment - and don't think that'll not come up if Germany can beat Spain tonight, and set up a final against the Dutch):

World Cup on song: Spain

Regardless of your own interest in this one - maybe you've got a Tenner on Spain to Win - there's plenty to choose from with the European La Roja. They checked in four years ago with a pretty good one. Here's this year's entry, Luis Ramiro and Marwan leading the terraces:

World Cup on song: Holland

Today's team is Netherlands, and there are lots of candidates - Johann Cruyff the master class player, and the singer (okay, not so much the latter) and Ruud Gullit, Madness-lite warbler. But the pick here is the brassy Kleinje Pils who lit up the speed skating in Richmond last winter: 

Techno 1, Vuvuzela 0

PORT ELIZABETH

It was the day the vuvuzela died.

Hold back the cheers and the high-fives. This was just one vuvuzela, figuratively stuffed back down the throat of a drunken Aussie wedging me into the back corner seat of a minivan bus headed to Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth Stadium.

On the World Cup trail, there are moments of disappointment and anger and happiness - and even elation, like this one, the driver turning the key in the Park 'n Ride shuttle from a local high school, the thumpingest, stomach-flippingest blast of Techno kicking in, shaking us all up and stopping the elephantine belch of this Mundial's most common, cursed and celebrated toy before it had barely started.

We're all bozos on this bus – World Cup bus, World Cup bozos – but we all agreed.

Everyone of the dozen of us – Portuguese supporters, the Aussie's friends, two Canadians - cheered as the blond Bruce drooped the vuvuzela to half-mast between his knees, nodding his head to the beats as the stadium coming into sight from above Techno 1, Vuvuzela 0. No extra time needed. I think he was happy too. Except for one thing. He turned to me, noted the media badge: “I have no tickets. Can you get me in the stadium?”

A World Cup moment

JOHANNESBURG

Our hosts here, the lovely Megan and Gareth, took us out on a night-time drive through Jo'burg tonight. We looked over the city from Lookout Point, but the chilly wind drove us back to the car after about two minutes. We drove around the Jo'burg CBD, over the Nelson Mandela Bridge dramatically lit up for the occasion. We headed for the heart of town, and the FIFA fan park at Mary Fitzgerald Square – but it was closed up for the night. No one walked the streets, a marked contrast to the scene earlier in the day. It felt and looked like downtown Detroit, to be frank, and we were all a bit bummed by that.

At Melrose Arch, an upscale area of hotels, restaurants and a giant screen the World Cup concert was showing live from Orlando Stadium, home of the NSL's storied Pirates side. We sat and had dinner, Gareth telling us a story of his days as a young under-20 soccer international, of playing alongside Bafana Bafana star Steven Pienaar and scoring a bicycle-kick goal in Malawi that helped put South Africa into the African youth championship. South Africa won 4-1, the pro-Malawi crowd eventually switching their allegiance to the visitors and saluting them. The very surface they played on was bouncing up and down with the noise, he recalled, until it turned into a rolling sea of green underfoot.
“When it was over, I tossed my shoes into the crowd and I'll never forget the face of the kid that caught one,” he recalled. “He started crying and it was like a cartoon, the tears just sprayed off his face.”
On Friday, Gareth will be in the crowd at Soccer City Stadium, watching from a seat instead of down on the field. He retired from pro soccer here four years ago. I asked him how he was feeling.
“Excitement – absolute, absolute excitement,” he said.
I asked him what he was looking forward to the most.
“Singing the national anthem,” he answered quickly.
Megan nodded, then added - “Madiba,” she said simply, for Mandela, making a rare appearance on Friday at age 91.
Up on the big screen, Toronto's K'Naan came on. It was time for Waving Flag. The entire Melrose Arch contingent joined in. The place rolled. A few weeks back, I interviewed K'Naan in the airplane as he arrived with the World Cup Trophy at Pearson International Airport. He was a wonderful fellow, thoughtful and honest and plain-spoken. And there he was, the Somali-born man from Rexdale now. Canada made it to the World Cup.
K'Naan did the most kick-ass, emotional Waving Flag I've ever heard. In tony Melrose Arch, the whole place kicked ass, one exuberant guy jumping up on stage to dance in front of the giant screen, everyone else content to sway to the music and shout along with K'Naan. Amid a sea of South African flags, a Mexican supporter waved his standard and sang along (one of the more vocal sides at any World Cup, they are well supported here but have grown uncharacteristically quiet here, perhaps a bit awed already at the overwhelming support for their opening-night hosts in yellow and green).
The silent downtown, the vibrant scene beaming in from Soweto, the great company of Megan and Gareth - and hanging over it all in the air, a real sense of history. In the cosy, mostly run-of-the-mill world of sports reporting, I don't think I've ever felt history as strong as tonight, and Friday, when Gareth and 88,000 others sing the anthem with Nelson Mandela in the house, it'll be positively spine-chilling. I don't think I'll ever cover anything as globally historic as this again.
I turned to Cathal. “It took us two days, but we've finally had our first World Cup moment.”