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Johannesburg - A 13-year-old girl from Port Elizabeth has won the national doodle for Google "Love Football" competition to be placed on the website's homepage from Friday, Africapractice said in a statement.

Nikisha Lalloo was crowned the winner out of 400 entrants aged between four and 17 from across the country, said the communications company's spokesperson Ali Merifield.

The entrants each designed a Google doodle and gave a supporting statement explaining their design choices.

Nikisha's supporting statement read: "I love football, especially the unusual actions, eg, the bicycle kick, which, when performed successfully is absolute poetry in motion. The skills, dexterity and bravery involved is second to none."

"I am so excited that I have won this year's competition and I can't believe that my design is going to be on the Google South Africa homepage for millions of people to see," Nikisha said after hearing she had won.

"All my friends and family are so happy that I have done so well and I'm excited that my doodle will be among those competing globally. The bonus is that it is a football doodle and the World Cup is presently in South Africa," she said.

In addition to her doodle being seen by millions of people on the Google website, Nikisha also won a laptop and a framed copy of her winning doodle.

The national winners from various countries have been automatically entered into the global competition, in which the public from around the world will vote for their overall favourite doodle.

Google South Africa's spokesperson Julie Taylor: "The competition has revealed a great wealth of talent overall, and Nikisha's doodle in particular shows wonderful artistic ability and creativity."

"The standard of entries in the Doodle 4 Google competition was outstanding. There's clearly a huge amount of pride and excitement in the air among young South Africans, given all the soccer fever," she said.

Taylor encouraged South Africans to vote for Nikisha's doodle on http://www.google.com/lovefootball between June 21 and June 28.

The global winner and the runner up stand to win prizes and the winner's doodle will also be displayed on the Google homepages of all the countries participating in the competition.

A Google doodle is an artistic customisation of the Google logo that is often seen on its homepage to celebrate different global or local people, events or special dates.