Well, not much really.  Having watched the 1966 one in a hotel bar in Ireland nothing that 2010 can do will match that.

However, what we do have now which was not evident in 1966 is an abundance of technology surrounding the event.  You have the infamous new ‘perfect’ football developed by the sports science boffins at Loughborough University which, alas, the players do not seem to have a good word to say about it.

There is the research that has come out of Exeter University to say that the way to succeed at penalty shoot-outs is to totally ignore the goalie – easier said than done I would think.  (Did you know that the England success rate at penalties is 17% whereas the Germans’ is 83%?)

For me though, forget the football.  What has really taken my fancy is the nifty 2010 wheel of information on the marca.com site – I could play with it for hours.

Let’s just hope that, whoever wins the tournament, South Africa comes out the winner overall.