Steve Tolmie looks back at a mixed bag of World Cup curtain-raisers 

Wow! South Africa’s Siphiwe Tshabalala scores against Mexico and, inset, Germany’s Philipp Lahm celebrates his goal against Costa Rica

On November 20, Qatar will play Ecuador in the opening game of the World Cup and many of us will be ‘working from home’ and trying to adjust to the idea of using the half-time break in a World Cup opener to look in the attic for the Christmas decorations.
The host nation have been given the honour of starting the tournament off since 2006, when Philipp Lahm’s worldy for Germany ag...