Official kickoff times are not the actual ones, games usually start later than schedule says. Does anyone know something about that for this WC?
Games pretty much always start at the stated time. The difference, if any, will be measured in seconds.
Do you mean the FIFA schedule or ESPN schedule? The ESPN schedule is for "coverage" not for the game alone and therefore usually includes a pre-game half-hour (more for US x England). If you're going by the ESPN schedule add 30 mins if you want to skip the pre-game stuff: http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2010/01/espn-inc-2010-fifa-world-cup-schedule/ Notice that the games above are listed a half-hour apart from the FIFA schedule below: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/index.html
Yes. It's pretty standard around the world for games to always start on time. You may get slight delays if they bodge up the anthems or something, but any delay would be very minor - a minute or two, tops. I have a picture from South Korea v Togo on my PC, with the players about to kick off. It was taken at 3pm on the dot. I also have one of Croatia's missed penalty v Japan, taken at 3.22. The penalty was in the 22nd minute of the game.
SA-Mex game actually started about 6-7 minutes later, i didn't catch a start of France-Uruguay game, was there a delay?
I think the SA game delay was less than that (on my watch anyway), although the anthems did seem to go on forever, and then the SA team went into a huddle for ages, which isn't normal. I think the France game was more or less bang on time. I will repeat that games are always planned to kick off exactly as specified, but sometimes, with all the faffing about with anthems etc, there's potential for a slight delay.