Well, I suspect that no new soccer fans were created today, except perhaps in South Africa. Notes from the first day of the 2010 World Cup:

SOUTH AFRICA 1-1 MEXICO

Certainly the better of the two games today, the South Africans took the lead via a counter-attacking strike from Siphiwe Tshabalala, who might have the single best name of any World Cup goalscorer ever. Unfortunately for American fans, Mexican defender Rafael Marquez popped up late in the match to equalize for the visitors. Katlego Mphela hit the post in the final minute of regulation for South Africa, but the hosts were denied the victory. Too bad, for all those of us who were rooting hard against Mexico.

Perhaps the main talking point of the match was an offside goal scored by Carlos Vela for Mexico, in which the striker was clearly behind the second-to-last defender, thus making him offsides. Somehow, ESPN commentator Martin Tyler declared this goal to be clearly onside, despite Vela being completely offside (Tyler was confused since, in this case, the second-to-last defender was the goalkeeper). Tyler has been the lead Sky Sports commentator in England for years and years; how is it possible for him to so completely bungle the offside rule, after seeing all that soccer?

This match was treated as somewhat of an upset, but South Africa – especially at home – is not as bad as their ranking makes them out to be. They’ve gone 13 matches now unbeaten, and remember, they finished fourth at the Confederations Cup last year; Brazil needed a late goal in the semis to beat South Africa, and Spain needed two goals in the final five minutes of regulation AND an extra-time winner in the third-place game.

One other note: It was nice to hear Tyler all but openly mocking Cuauhtemoc Blanco for being fat. “The oldest, and probably the heaviest player on the field,” said Tyler of Blanco. WHO ATE ALL THE EMPANADAS?, etc and so on.

URUGUAY 0:0 FRANCE

I suppose French fans will do well to remember that, in 2006, France opened the tournament with an incredibly boring draw against Switzerland. They also drew with Korea and only scraped past Togo before making an improbable run to the final.

Nevertheless: boring draw. Uruguay was more than happy to keep eight or ten or seventeen defenders back at all times; most of their attacks consisted of Diego Forlan challenging for punts from the goalkeeper.

(An aside: I know he’s scored a million goals in various leagues in the intervening time, but it’s still shocking to me to see Forlan being used as a legitimate goal threat. Remember, this is the man that provoked mocking “I SAW FORLAN SCORE” T-shirts to be printed when he finally managed to find the net for Manchester United, way back when.)

So there’s Group A for you: two matches, two goals, one point for everybody, and no advantages gained or lost. You’d have to say that Mexico looks to be the favorite, even though they seemed to lose interest for long stretches against South Africa. Maybe if they play Blanco the whole time and put slices of pie on either end of the field to motivate him.

Other than Tyler’s offside gaffes, the coverage was honestly not bad. Ian Darke called the other game; Darke, like Tyler, is normally a Sky Sports commentator, and apart from his tendency to talk only about those players who he sees regularly in Premier League matches, he’s fine. He did mention that French players Abou Diaby and Bacary Sagna both play for Arsenal. About fifty times each. Given that French defender William Gallas is on his way out at Arsenal, and strikers Nicholas Anelka and Thierry Henry both formerly played for the English club, it was sort of an Arsenalesque day. Doubly so since France failed to score against a team that put all the defenders behind the ball.

A word of praise, too, for the ESPN3.com broadcasts, which trailed the cable broadcasts by only a split-second, and didn’t suffer from the connection and broadcast problems that one might expect for the first day of the biggest sporting event in the world. Well done, ESPN.