<\/p>\n
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa | Strutting into the stadium dancing and singing, South Africa\u2019s players turned their final game at the World Cup into a rollicking party for the entire country.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Forgive France if it didn\u2019t feel like celebrating.<\/p>\n
South Africa became the first World Cup host in 80 years to fail to advance from the first round, but it went out with a 2-1 win Tuesday that at least gave its fans some measure of joy.<\/p>\n
Each team needed a big win to have any chance of moving on from Group A, and both stuck to character. South Africa played eager and aggressive soccer, while France imploded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fighting spirit was there,\u201d said Katlego Mphela, who scored one of South Africa\u2019s goals. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit unfortunate, but we beat France in the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bongani Khumalo scored in the 20th minute for South Africa, and Mphela doubled the lead 17 minutes later.<\/p>\n
Substitute Florent Malouda scored for France in the 70th minute, but it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n
France, the 2006 runner-up, leaves the tournament with a single point \u2014 from a 0-0 draw with Uruguay. Worse, it has become the shame of a proud nation.<\/p>\n
The low point came when the players refused to train Sunday to protest Nicolas Anelka\u2019s expulsion from the team after he insulted coach Raymond Domenech.<\/p>\n
Domenech took captain Patrice Evra and five others out of Tuesday\u2019s lineup in the wake of the protest. <\/p>\n
In Paris, fans who gathered near the Eiffel Tower to watch the match on video screens booed their own team and cheered for South Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of people are for South Africa now,\u201d said radio journalist Angelique Jurquit. \u201cThe French are disgusted with the results of their team, so this is a bit to make fun of France now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Argentina 2, Greece 0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n POLOKWANE, South Africa | Look out, world. Even playing mostly backups Argentina looks good.<\/p>\n Argentina coach Diego Maradona replaced seven starters from the lineup that ran up a 4-1 victory over South Korea \u2014 the other team to make it out of the group \u2014 but it didn\u2019t matter much. Argentina still got its third straight victory and won Group B.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re showing ourselves that many of the things you (journalists) said were wrong,\u201d Maradona said, referring to predictions that his team, which struggled in South American qualifying, would do the same in South Africa.<\/p>\n Martin Demichelis and Martin Palermo scored second-half goals for Argentina.<\/p>\n South Korea 2, Nigeria 2<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n DURBAN, South Africa | The only previous time South Korea made it out of the World Cup\u2019s first round was when it reached the semifinals as a co-host in 2002.<\/p>\n The South Koreans added another memorable chapter by advancing out of Group B with a draw against Nigeria.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal was to reach the last 16. We succeeded in doing this for the first time away from home,\u201d South Korea captain Park Ji-sung said.<\/p>\n Lee Jung-soo and Park Chu-young scored for South Korea after Kalu Uche had given Nigeria the lead in the 12th minute. <\/p>\n Ayegbeni Yakubu netted a 69th-minute penalty kick to draw Nigeria even again \u2014 moments after he missed a wide-open net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa | Strutting into the stadium dancing and singing, South Africa\u2019s players turned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amagep.co.za\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}