Fans fire up for World Cup

English supporter and Ministry and Wakatipu Tavern manager Dan Crawford said he would be watching all the games.

The Ministry sports bar had been granted a special licence to open for the 6.30am matches.

"A condition of the licence is that people have to have pre-bought tickets to get into the bar. So we sold 400 World Cup keyrings and they are now sold out. The $10 keyring gets you into every game for the World Cup," he said.

The bar staff were mostly football-crazy English people, but there were a few Australians, Americans and a New Zealand chef, he said.

One of the English workers had ordered English football jerseys and flags to be sent over for the World Cup because he could not source them in Queenstown.

"We're going to try and be neutral because there are so many different nationalities here, but we have to have a bit of England for the supporters," he said.

Mr Crawford, who is from Liverpool, had his sights on English and Liverpool Football Club captain Steven Gerrard lifting the World Cup.

Brazilians Marcio Treis and Vico Savi, who work at Alpine Supermarket, said they were "very excited" about the World Cup.

"Everybody is crazy for soccer in Brazil. We have won the World Cup five times. That's the most of any country. We are the only country that played in all the World Cups," Mr Treis said.

"We were in the last three finals so I expect we will be there again, this time maybe against Spain."

Frenchman Cyrille Domas, who works at Queenstown burger bar Fergburger, said he wanted New Zealand to win the World Cup because of the atmosphere it would create in town.

"I would love for the All Whites to win, or France, but to be in New Zealand if they did win, that would be great."

Spanish couple Alvaro and Victoria Casado were on holiday in Queenstown but will be in the Cook Islands for Spain's first match, against Switzerland on June 16.

Spain had a "very high" chance of winning the World Cup after the team's recent European championship win, they said.

South African Greg Wertheim lives in Auckland but is visiting Queenstown. He planned to stay up to watch South Africa play Mexico last night, and he was predicting a 1-1 draw.

His friends and family back home were sending him photographs of the stadiums and soccer madness on the streets of Cape Town, he said.

"South Africa is not the safest place but they have built some great stadiums. They've really gone all out for the Cup, it's just amazing."