Since winning the EuroCup in 2008, Spain has been nearly undefeated. Their only loss in two years and 48 games has been to the United States. But yesterday that changed when Switzerland defeated Spain 1-0. In a later game, South Africa took a beating on the field, losing to Uruguay 3-0. And the South Africa goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune received a red card for tackling a Uruguayan striker, leaving his team one man short.

Takeaway correspondent Femi Oke spends the morning at the South African restaurant, Madiba, in Brooklyn, New York, where owners and patrons are preparing for the biggest South African World Cup party in the city. Restaurant owner, Mark Hanegan says there are already 120 breakfast reservations from South Africa fans, coming to eat the home-style food and watch the game. Femi checks in with enthusiastic soccer fans at the bar, like Tiffani Knowles, who was the first to arrive at the restaurant this morning.

The FIFA World Cup is just two days away. Thirty-two teams will face off in 65 games over the course of one full month of soccer madness in South Africa. For those of us back here in the USA, we'll have to settle for clustering around television screens or surreptitious web feeds on our work computers. 

Sports Illustrated's Jen Chang tells us the most essential games to watch and, ahem, how to do it at work.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off on June 11th in South Africa. This is the first time an African country is hosting the Cup, and the entire continent has caught soccer fever.

Here’s a cracking idea! Aardman Animations, the makers of the Oscar-winning animation series Wallace and Gromit, have opened their first animation academy, hoping to train the next generation of world-class animators.

Nothing unusual so far, except this academy is in a South African township – a place where any opportunities to receive world-class training are thin on the ground.

20 years ago, former South African President Nelson Mandela was released from prison. He had spent 27 years behind bars, and his release came early in South Africa’s transition from an apartheid regime to a multi-racial democracy. Today, South Africa commemorates Mandela's leaving Robben Island prison – but for some, this is a bittersweet anniversary.

Director Clint Eastwood's latest, "Invictus," opens this weekend. The film shows Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from prison, as a new president working to unite a polarized South Africa by changing the image of the nation's all-white rugby team.  Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon star in the film, but South African actors say they should be playing these major roles set in their country.

Takeaway film contributor Rafer Guzman and South African arts and entertainment journalist Nadia Neophytou discuss the convroversy behind "Invictus."

As South Africa heads to the polls to elect a new President, we check in with two voters. Athi Singapi is a 24-year-old travel business owner in Port Elizabeth, South Africa who is not a fan of the ruling African National Congress. We also speak with Thanduxolo Bomali, who is a supporter of the ANC.

For more of The Takeaway's coverage of South Africa, click here.

Fifteen years after Nelson Mandela swept to an historic victory to become the first black President of South Africa, today South Africans again head to the polls. As it has for the last fifteen years, once again Nelson Mandela's party, the African National Congress, is expected to win comfortably, and the ANC's Jacob Zuma is expected to become President. But for many, South Africa has not lived up to the dreams of 1994, the year Mandela, one of the great heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle became President and a national unity government was formed. Now, almost 23% of the population is unemployed and the country is plagued with a staggeringly high murder and crime rate. Many blame South Africa's problems on the government and for the first time since 1994, the ANC faces meaningful opposition in this election.

To help paint the scene and provide some background, this morning The Takeaway talks with Andrew Meldrum, Africa Editor of the Global Post in Boston, who spent 27 years in South Africa, and with the BBC’s Africa Editor, Martin Plaut, who’s outside a polling station in a township in Cape Town.

For more on the divided opinion of Jacob Zuma, watch the video below.

Fifteen years ago, Nelson Mandela swept to an historic victory to become the first black President of South Africa. That victory was the start of the dominance of Mandela's African National Congress Party. A decade and a half later, the African National Congress Party's candidate, Jacob Zuma, is again poised to reign supreme. Today is the last day of campaigning before South Africans head to the polls on Wednesday.

To help us understand what Zuma's presumed leadership will mean for South Africa and what the U.S. will be watching in this election, The Takeaway talks to Dan Simpson. Simpson is currently an editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Before taking the reigns at the paper, he was Director of Southern African Affairs in the State Department in the 1980s and has been U.S. Ambassador to several African countries.

A U.S. judge has ruled that a class action lawsuit can move ahead against several large companies accused of helping South Africa's apartheid-era government in violation of international human rights law. The case has been going on since 2002 and was initially filed against 50 corporations and involved ten lawsuits claiming more than $400 billion in damages. While the cases have been consolidated to only two lawsuits against five companies, the corporations are a who's who of American companies: the computer giant IBM, Ford and General Motors are among the U.S. companies facing demands for damages from thousands of apartheid's victims. The BBC's Lucy Bailey has more.

Last September, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party and the opposition MDC party signed a power sharing agreement. However, they have been unable to agree on how to form their government leaving the country without effective leadership. In an effort to resolve the ongoing political deadlock in Zimbabwe, heads of state from southern African nations are holding a summit meeting in Pretoria, South Africa. For more on this we are joined from South Africa by BBC Correspondent Jonah Fisher.

Watch a BBC report on the situation in Southern Africa: