Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of Portugal arrives with the Portugal squad ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament at OR Thambo Airport on June 06, 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Portugal team are staying at a lodge in Mogale City (Magaliesburg) and treated fans to an open training session at the Bekker Hoer Skool stadium on Sunday.
Fans watched as the team trained and were treated to the signing of autographs by Ronaldo and a few others. The team graciously held up a "Thank you Mogale City" sign following their training session. Portugal will play Mozambique in a friendly at Wanderers Stadium on 8 June. Tickets are unfortunately all sold out ! ( June 5, 2010 - Photo by Handout/Getty Images Europe). Click Read More for more images.
Johannesburg - Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portuguese team-mates landed in South Africa Sunday, where the arrival of the 25-year-old Real Madrid star fuelled mounting excitement in the host country five days before kick-off.
Team Portugal landed at Johannesburg' OR Tambo International Airport shortly before noon local time.
As with all the teams, their arrival was off-bounds to the public.
Team arrivals accelerated over the weekend: France, Mexico, South Korea, Uruguay, Japan and the Netherlands arrived over the past two days and fanned out to their camps around the country.
By Sunday lunchtime, 17 of the visiting 31 teams had arrived. New Zealand, Greece and Algeria were expected later in the day.
Carlos Queiroz's men will be based at the four-star Valley Lodge on the banks of the Magalies river, 75 kilometres west of Johannesburg, and will be training at a nearby high school.
Portugal has never won a World Cup. Their best showing in their previous four World Cup appearances was third place in 1966.
The team has been drawn along five-time champions Brazil, upstart African side Cote d'Ivoire and relative unknowns North Korea in Group G.
The Portugal-Brazil game in Durban is one of the most eagerly anticipated of the tournament.
South Africa is home to a large number of people of Portuguese origin, many of whom have been flying the team's flag on their car windows.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|