Some of the best hightlights of the first round of group play came on the last day, as Chile put on a dazzling display in a 1-0 defeat of Honduras, and the Swiss pulled off a mammoth upset in defeating tournament co-favorites and 2008 European Champions Spain, 1-0 for the country's first win a World Cup opener since 1954.

South Africa celebrated a national holiday on Wednesday in remembrance of the beginning of the end of apartheid in Soweto. The soccer team, however, could not capitalize on the emotion, falling 3-0 to Uruguay.

World Cup links:

• Chile's win was came exactly 48 years to the day since its last World Cup victory, which came on home soil with the aid of soccer lengend, Garrincha. Alexis Sanchez looked every bit his heir apparent on Wednesday.

• Make no mistake, its not just the World Cup, its the "FIFA" World Cup, and John Scott of Cape Town's IOL.co.za, is none too pleased with the controls and restrictions imposed by soccer's governing body.

• South Africa's chances of advancement have dwindled to to practically nil. Bafana Bafana will have to face France in its final group game sans starting keeper Itumelung Khune and possibly without coach Carlos Alberto Parreira who is facing sanctions from FIFA.

• Diego Maradona has been far too...well...normal so far. But on the eve of his team's match with South Korea, Maradona couldn't resist ripping on Pele.

• Slovenian midfielder Andrej Komac recently predicted that his team would beat the U.S. Resident world beater, American goalie Tim Howard responded Wednesday stating, "...a lot of boxers talk, too, and they’re looking up at the lights. And the next thing they know, they’re trying to figure out how they got there.”

• Think the North Korean team is the most isolated of the World Cup teams? Guess again. As Martin Rogers of Yahoo.com writes, it's the American team that is being isolated from the outside world.

• After tying South Africa in its first game, Mexico will need to impose its attacking style against France on Thursday. France had absolutely no offense in its first game, which coach Raymond Domenech hopes infuriates his players.

• Australia's former coach is telling fans to layoff his successor, and so happens to have the most unfortunate name in all of sports.

Picture of the day:

Eren Derdiyok, airborn, sacrifices life and limb to keep the ball alive for in the Spanish penalty area as teammate Gelson Fernandes looks on. Fernandes eventually collected the ball amidst the scramble to score the only goal in Switzerland's 1-0 upset victory over the tournament co-favorites. (AP Photo)

Pete Cunningham covers sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by e-mail at petercunningham@annarbor.com or by phone at 734-623-2561. Follow him on Twitter@petcunningham.