3 July - Cape Town - Argentina vs Germany

Best Day of the World Cup So Far !

This is easily the largest slideshow we've uploaded so far, but have a look and I hope you'll see why. Today was match day 14 for us and it was by far and away our best experience to date. Forget the football. I don't love the German football team, never have, so the fact that I feel elated at the end of this day just shows what an unbelievable show the Mother City put on today.

This was a remarkable day for Cape Town. I've lived here for 13 years and I have never seen a day like this before.  There were 64 000 people inside Cape Town Stadium today but I swear there were 500 000 on the fan walk. People on our train gasped in awe when someone announced that they had a ticket for the match. I reckon that 80% of those on the train were just coming into town to experience the vibe. Just getting on a train was a miracle. In the end the trains didn't even bother stopping at stations because they were just too full.

I have never seen so many smiles and so little irritability, despite some serious queues and crowds. The weather was benign and it would seem that half of Cape Town decided that today was the day to get out and celebrate just how good the people of this country feel about what has gone down over the past 3 weeks.



To think that FIFA were worried about South Africans losing interest after Bafana Bafana were knocked out ! That might be the case when a developed country like Germany or England hosts the World Cup but you simply cannot overestimate what hosting the World Cup has meant to the people of this country. In a blog post written 6 months ago I said that "South Africa was waiting like a neglected child for our chance to shine."

Truth comes in action, not words. Over the last 23 days South Africa has shone like the vibrant and utterly capable country it truly is. Since 19th June I have driven  6500 km's on one of the best road networks in the world; I have slept and dined at world class accommodation facilities; I've successfully posted video, audio and words on the internet from every small town I've been through, and I have seen a police presence like none I've ever witnessed anywhere else in the world.

The success of this World Cup is not that the world has finally seen us for what we are, but rather that we have finally seen ourselves for what we are.

Perversely, I almost think that this World Cup really took off for South Africans when Bafana Bafana were knocked out. We were freed of the anxiety of worrying about things we couldn't control, and we were freed up to focus on the things we could control......like making sure stadiums were full, like making foreigners feel welcome, and like making sure that this World Cup will be remembered as the noisiest and most vibrant in history.

Which brings me back to Germany, hosts of the 2006 tournament. It will be a travesty if the nation who so openly criticised the decision to give the 2010 World Cup to South Africa actually wins the damn thing in this country. Please don't forget what Uli Hoeness and Franz Beckenbauer said about our ability to host the event. (You can see what they said in one of my earliest posts back in Jan or Feb of this year.)  In effect the message was; Togo team gets attacked at African Cup of Nations in Angola....therefore Africans can't be trusted to organise a World Cup. This, from the country who hosted the most disastrous Olympics of all time in 1972 when 11 Israelis were kidnapped from the Olympic Village (and eventually murdered.)

This is a very good German team who have inflicted defeats of cataclysmic proportions on both England and Argentina but it's  also an arrogant team. Captain Philip Lahm had quite a bit to say about how the English had under-prepared for their Bloemfontein match-up. He then went one better by describing South Americans as emotional and bad losers. Nothing like a good racial stereotype when you're trying to play mental games in the build-up to a World Cup Quarter Final. But perhaps the Germans should pay heed to the enormous damage racial stereotypes have played in the sorry history of  the country hosting this World Cup.  Perhaps they should also pay heed to their own sorry history before throwing racial stereotypes around so casually.


I sincerely hope that Spain turn them over on Wed night. Germany have scored 4 goals on 3 occasions in this World Cup and that fact alone is screaming 'World Champions.'  In Spain's favour, however, is the fact that they haven't really caught alight, yet they're in the semi-finals. There's a sense that they could still catch fire , a bit like Italy in 1982. Plus, they did demolish Germany 3-0 in the final of Euro 2008.

However, the most intriguing reworking of World Cup history involves Germany beating Spain on Wed night...and then facing The Netherlands in the final. The 1974 World Cup Final in Munich is legendary mainly because one of the most talented teams ever seen on the world stage (Holland) were beaten by an efficient and workmanlike German team, 2-1. Could 11 July in Johannesburg see the roles reversed ? A highly talented and precocious German team being beaten by a solid, efficient and unspectacular Dutch outfit ?

Only 7 countries have ever won the World Cup. I really hope that, next Sunday, we see an 8th country join that list. There are no more worthy contenders for that honour than Spain or The Netherlands.