Mandela's Legacy

I've spent the last several days mostly at home vigorously failing to write down any of my many thoughts. South Africa is unfinished business for me. I know that much. My blogging was not up to my intentions of course, but stands as a sort of series of photographs, incomplete and some blurry, but nevertheless captured memories. But I don't think I've finished.

I think a lot about South Africa, and what it has done. There is rightly an impression that South Africa must be a bit backward politically, that finally in 1994 it shrugged off institutional racism. But as a microcosm of the World it seems to me that it is the first not the last.

Because South Africa is a microcosm of the world, and a world which is globalising faster than everyone is comfortable with. South Africa contains both the First World and the Developing World, but in 1994 the borders were removed. Maybe we should keep a careful eye on it. Maybe we should study Mandela's politics carefully. It might be the best model we have to pull down the global apartheid which is holding back millions of human opportunities in every direction.

Australia may feel blessed to be an island, and to be able to pretend that we can seal ourselves off from the problems of the world around us with our own version of barbed wire, but this world is becoming one very rapidly, and ultimately I fear the barbed wire is going to hold us back.

Don't talk to South Africa, which shares a very permeable border with Zimbabwe, about refugees. Actually, if you're Australian you better keep your mouth shut about that topic pretty much wherever you go.

This current Australian election reveals to us more starkly than ever the inadequacy of federal government when it comes to the real issues of our day - population, poverty, climate change, terrorism, sustainability. These problems, for both major parties, are things that can be kept out by border security and xenophobia. But they can't. Addressing these things - and Australia still isn't even big enough to spend the recommended 0.09% of GDP on foreign aid - is addressing Australia's biggest problems. Educating and developing the World is the highest priority for Australia's interests. Meanwhile any interplanetary visitor would be reporting back to its people that Earth practices apartheid and that the current Australian election is the western elite once again voting for it.

I refer to the fact that Pauline Hanson's then-controversial views on refugees have now permeated both sides of parliament. For anyone who still feels strongly about this issue, the only political refuge, unfortunately, is the Greens.

"Build the fences higher," is not going to work. At some stage in the medium future, the World is going to have to pull the fences down and let the people of the World live where it is good for them to live and get jobs where they can get jobs. If facing that sort of music horrifies us, we should think of the white South Africans, and not feel so self-righteous when we do so.

Finding Africa

This is as close as I got to the Grand Final. The photo was taken by Jacob actually, and we had split up a minibus ride ago, but Jacob had a ticket. I was wandering the periphery, a shag on a seething rock, practically illegal, knowing there was no fan zone anywhere.

The reason I was there at all is because I was trying to keep up with Keith and Kate, Total Sports Employees, who also weren't going to the game. They didn't really know where the fan zones were, oddly enough for travel people, but were planning on finding one. But we were shepharded onto different minibusses at the park and ride point, which of course dropped us at different random points closer to Soccer City. I found out about their story later, but I'm not going to relate it because mine is more interesting.

One thing I have learned travelling is that you can get anywhere by asking the right questions. "Where's the nearest fan zone?" I ask a cop.

"Ah... Newtown."

"Where do you catch a bus or cab to Newtown?" I ask another cop after wandering for a while looking for such a thing. The apparently thousands of mini-busses and busses were all coming in and becoming permanently stuck in place. There really wasn't an easy answer to the question and when one police officer directed me to "the other side of the stadium" (which looked like it might be about 30 miles) I strongly suspected she wanted me to become someone else's problem.

Finally I flagged a mini-bus that had extracted itself from the jam and was going back to Gold Reef, the park and ride zone, for more passengers. He showed me where to get a mini-bus toward Newtown.

It was the first time I've used Johanessburg's real public transport system. Generally the tourists are warned against using it, and they are never really advised about it. The owners of the B&B in Durban mentioned it, but explicitly said that it was dangerous, but then again, they are not exactly ANC voters, and one can't help supect that the main problem with the mini-bus system is that the mini-busses are full of local black people. Call me a cynic.

There are hundreds of them, all the time. They regularly beep their horns just to sort of say, "Here I am!" Each of them have established routes, but they can be hailed at any point. They are absurdly cheap to catch.

I was told how to catch them in detail on the first day of arrival from Mark. "Put out your hand like that eh? Five fingers eh? Randburg. Seven Rand 50 eh?" That particular trip was alternately a 10 minute walk so I never used it. But whenever I've needed a cab I've used metered taxis, Jay (a white local who has moved in on the people-moving business for lack of adequate service otherwise, and who also asks, "Eh?" at the end of every statement), or the provided busses.

The minibusses go all over Joburgh, and anyway now I was in one, in Soweto, heading for some place called Newtown. It was full of black, local people. About 4.00pm. I was on my own, out of the blanket-policed zone of control, without the immediate responsibility of my son, and the evening had started.

Of course I still had no idea where I was going. "Will you get me to Newtown?" I asked the driver. He nods. "How much?"

"Six Rand."

Almost embarassed, I hand forward three small silver coins. As people were dropped off and picked up along the route, the bus remained, miraculously, precisely full, without disappointing anyone. When people got on they passed their money from person to person through to the front, the driver would count it and then wordlessly pass any necessary change back over his shoulder to be passed back to the appropriate person.

Helpfully, a bloke behind me says, "I'm going to Newtown." I wonder if he's going to the fan zone, but think at least I'll know where to get off the bus.

It's about a twenty minute drive, and when we get off it turns out he is heading for the fan zone, and I am pleased for the company and the guide. We walked for about four or five blocks and there wasn't much indication of anything except light industrial urbia, but as promised there was eventually more people and we came to the security check and passed. Back into the foreigner-protected zone. But still at least 95% of these people were not foreigners. This was mostly a closing night party for the locals, and I was where I wanted to be, finally.

As pictured before heading out, I was wearing colours. Ben, a compatriot who was going to the game supporting the Netherlands in full kit (pictured next to Jacob below), had found the kangaroo and given it to me. Later in the bus I ripped the joey off and gave it to Ben, who still has it.

The kangaroo was a good prop, but the flag was essential, as I had earlier determined that for this last, celebratory night I must wear my own team. Jacob, on the other hand, is as Spanish as he could possibly get.

The flag was the main prize, and now, back at home in Brisbane with my beautiful fiance, it remains my most valuable momento.

Jacob and I walked to Randburg for the last time early that morning. Jacob was buying a jacket for Ben, who as well as being fairly promiscuous with the teams he supports is an extreme merchandise junkie, and wanted some more Spanish regalia for himself as well. I just wanted something destinctively Australian, as I'd given my scarf and hat away in Durban and my Socceroos jersey wasn't much good under the necessary layers against the cold. It had occurred to me tht a flag would be perfect, but knew that there would be no Australian flags for sale. It was all Spain and the Netherlands, with a few French and Japanese leftovers, and no flags.

But in the Randburg Mall there is hanging by the elevators a series of World Cup Nations flags. In broad daylight, Jacob casually informing me of how many people were watching, I managed to reach one of the pieces of fishing line holding up the Australian flag from the balcony of the second level. I carefully hauled it up, worrying that the rod the flag was hanging from might slip from the line with the vertical weight, until I could grab the rod and bring it over the balcony. With my teeth I cut the line on one side so I could slip the flag from the rod. I placed the rod, still attached to a fishing line to the ceiling at one end, on the ground, and we walked as casually as possible, myself refusing to even acknowledge that anyone might be looking, back through the mall and, after looking once more in a merchandise store for the Spanish shoelaced volleys Jacob was after (he settled for South African ones), outside and back to the Football Gulag.

There is much security and police, but little enforcement.

If the best the internationals can do is call us convicts, then we must oblige. Stealing the Australian flag, which I proudly wore, was my greatest yob act in South Africa. But to continue the story of the day...

I wasn't ready for a permanent companion so I lost my guide from the bus pretty quickly, despite him trying to establish a night-long relationship. What I needed was a toilet and a beer. And food. Oh, and cigarettes.

What I didn't need was for someone to paint a really terrible rendition of an Australian flag on my face and take 30 rand from me, but the guy did direct me to the toilets.

Generally you don't include the toilet stop in a diary-like account but I have a reason in this case. But even before I get to the message on the back of the toilet door I need to backtrack yet again.

Mark at the Gulag has brought up a concerning narrative several times in the past couple of weeks. He is absolutely certain that when the World Cup is over - now, but this weekend is when Mark thinks it's likely - there will be an outbreak of xenophobic violence against foreigners. "It's not IF it will happen ey? It will happen eh? If there's even a rumour violence might happen here then it happens. But this time everyone's saying it will happen eh? It will happen eh?" Etcetera. In Mark's opinion the 'bloodletting' will even be 'right' in some way. I tried to probe the point with argument, but didn't persist beyond the point of discomfort. I still want to think he's wrong, that he's just a freak, but for the record, watch the South African media this weekend.

And I had no other confirmation of Mark's viewpoint until I read the back of the toilet door at the Newtown fan zone, which said, "Any foreigners still in [an unremembered placename] after the 2010 World Cup will be burned with petrol to the ground." After that someone else had scrawled, "Racism will kill us all," and there was to-and-from dialogue after that from various contributors, but the headline was large-writ and dominated the door.

Food was easier to find than the toilet, and beyond that having my cigarette supply in order became a higher priority than beer. So I wandered from the fan zone to see what I could find.

A couple of blocks away I found a restaurant which looked lively, and beyond that a bar. The bar was black, with people playing music, smoking and looking very relaxed. It was still only about 5.00pm or so.

I shouldn't paint too much of an off-the-beaten-track picture of this place. It wasn't that far off the track. By the time of the game I guess it was 10% full of foreigners, and security guys were still about, but there were none of either there by 4.00am.

I still really just wanted some cigarettes. Rolling tobacco, which is cheaper and far less bad for you, is really hard to get in South Africa, so I often had to resort to cigarettes, which I don't really like. The guy at the door of the bar - overstaffed as everywhere - asked for 30 rand and went to get my cigarettes, rather than just directing me to the machine, so I bought a beer from the bar as he did so, naturally.

There wasn't any seats left but there was only two girls in one booth so I sat and asked if it was ok that I did. Their names are Amanda and Nelly, and I was with them for the rest of the evening. My apologies for no photographs - Jacob has the camera at this point and, incidentally, is doing brilliantly with it.

The girls are educated and intelligent, with Zulu accents. The Africaans accent is frankly disturbing. Like the German accent if you hear too much of it it kind of drives you mad, but it is a shame that we have come to call that the South African accent. The Zulu accent, like the Zulu people, is very cool.

Actually I find the white Africaaner people to be uptight, uncomfortable and slightly irritating in general. With rare exceptions, like Kevin, the guy next to me on the second flight to Durban, it's like they don't want to be here but insist on every excuse for not leaving except the underlying definitive one that they can't. The people at the bar - mostly Zulus I suspect - were not like the immigrant workers - mostly Zimbabweans - directed around by Mark back at the Gulag. The Zulus seemed a cool, proud people, who moved and resonated with grace and purpose.

The people I met that night were very pleased with my opinion of the Afrikaaners' accent. I think they were also pleased that I was there, blatantly an Australian yobo, by myself, at all.

"Are you scared?" Nelly asked soon after introductions.

"No."

"You're lying. You are scared."

I didn't feel that scared. "Maybe I am a bit, but it's a fear I want. I want to actually be here, for just one night before I go back to Australia."

I shouted the girls to dinner at the restaurant next door, where we bantered with a table full of Spanish revelers whilst eating meats and drinking coctails. One of the girls organised a few joints outside (I found out weeks ago that the standard price is five rand each) and we smoked one as we walked to the fan zone for the game. There was part of one left, which I pocketed for later.

The truth is that although there were thousands of people, the night was very cold. It was so cold that all my compatriots who actually went to the game didn't party at all afterward but went straight back to the Gulag on the first bus. It's hard to get beer, and another guy who had latched on to us had been extremely sleezy toward Amanda, so although we watched the first half with interest, and although I felt like a very smug yobo with my stolen flag and a pretty girl under each arm, it was not the best environment, so at half time we headed back to the bar. The bar, now, was quite packed.

And the whole place moved. Everyone, foreigners from all corners, locals black and white, were friends, as we somehow colonised a space and I did that sideways slither through the bouncing, writhing crowd to the bar for drinks.

There was attention of sorts for the game, but it wasn't easy to see the screen, and I missed bits. But when the whistle blew for full time, before extra time, the DJ within seconds had changed the sound to music and the place danced. Apart from the restraint of the game itself, the place wanted to dance, and dance it did.

When Spain scored the place went completely insane, and I lit the half-joint. I'd already met a few people, but a stranger, who turned out to be a player in Brazil's second division, smelled it and I passed it naturally without expecting it back from the crowd. The place was generally going off at this time.

Mbizo, the football player, grabbed me as I once more braved the journey to the bar. "Got any more weed?"

"I thought I did but my friend can't find it," I replied honestly. "Have you?"

"Sure man, I'll sort it," Mbizo said with enormous enthusiasm, "I'll smoke you up man. Fuck it I am going to so smoke you up." I liked him a lot. He had charisma and cool, and clearly was the dominant male in the small crew of blokes he was with. He grabbed me a short while later and, taking me outside, introduced me to his friends, the only name of which I can remember is Happy.

From that time on there were many, many joints, and although I was buying drinks and cigarettes at a fairly rapid rate by this time for quite a few people, they resolutely refused money for the dope. Once again, once I lit up inside they did too. I couldn't help feeling that if the foreigner could do it that they could to, but there was no holding anyone back once it had started. If there was still police and security around outside, I doubt they would have cared or noticed.

I can't hide that I was extremely happy with how the whole thing had worked out. However fleetingly, however superficially, I felt a great need to actually be with the locals. A number of times in the past month I have gone a bit off the beaten track, but I needed to really do it and that night I felt I got the closest. The guys clearly enjoyed my company, and I thoroughly enjoyed theirs, as we bantered about football, South Africa, life and peace between all people.

Most of all, until 4am when the place stopped selling drinks and finally closed, we just danced. Then the girls and a boy friend of Nelly's walked a couple of blocks with me to find an ATM, and I farewelled the girls with some money for a cab. The guy whose name I have forgotten (by this time I am, I admit, staggering) then walked me many blocks to some transit place with 24 hour taxis. I slept most of the taxi ride back to the Gulag and, checking that Jacob is safely in bed, retired.

Congratulations Spain. Ben was absolutely devastated, but Jacob had had an excellent night. Deserved winners.

The Final Four

Four are left, three beautiful Europeans and a gutsy outsider South American.

Apart from just watching some brilliant teams play do-or-die soccer, the significance of day two of the Quarter Finals was that Jacob and I got to find out who would be the teams we will see live in Durban on the 7th.

Apart from our Socceroos scarves, I have accumulated just two. I bought a German scarf early on in reverence for the team that beat our own so comprehensively and beautifully. Later I bought an Argentina scarf as I succumbed to Maradona's cool and charm. So we negotiated, and I wore the Argentina scarf and Jacob wore Deutschland.

The organised collective defeated the reliance on flair. And Jacob gets the Germany scarf for the Semi.

What really stands out about the Germans is their apparent ability to not just have shots and get some of them in, but two of the four goals were a complete defeat of Argentina's defences. That is, they passed and dribbled their way all the way in to within feet of the goal before the shot. I just haven't seen much of that at this cup.

When it comes to Spain, who barely won the game against Paraguay, their control and passing is sublime, but the ability to actually defeat a defense is what they lack.

So for my money Germany is the only squad at this tournament who has demonstrated a complete mastery of the game in every part of the pitch.

The Irish curse was fulfilled and the Nike curse was fulfilled. The only living god at the tournament, whose team had the privilege of being kissed by a god before entering the pitch, is out, humiliated 4:0 by the masters. And the other random factors have been largely sorted too.

The Vuvuzelas have become background noise, however unfortunate. The ball has been masterd and corrected for. There are no teams who have not had time to prepare, who lack top level gametime, or who are not dealing with any foreign conditions. The four teams have played five top level games each in perfect practice conditions for the competition head.

So The Netherlands will defeat brave Uruguay, Germany will defeat the Spaniards (to my peril I am again ignoring the M&Ms), and, I believe, Germany will win the finals. Third? I think Uruguay will have more to play for, but who knows.

Round of Eight Day One - The Pagan View

Netherlands v Brazil 2:1

Now regular readers of my writings are accustomed to incisive, educated analysis and poignant, accurate predictions, so I will not disappoint.

It was the M&Ms and, the Nike curse.

The M&Ms, you may remember, were very clear: the Finals, at which my son will be present, will be a Spanish victory over the Netherlands. Hence, I really should have known that Brazil was gone.

But for the issue of the Nike curse I cannot claim responsibility. The Nike curse is an astute observation by my Facebook compatriot Gav Gforce Cheesebladder.

The Nike ads, according to Cheesebladder (See what you miss when you ignore the advertising?), gave away the game with the slogan, "Write the future?" All the stars featured in the ads have gone home - Ronaldo, Rooney, Canavaro, Ribery, Drogba - except... Robinho. In Cheesebladders own words, "The Nike curse says Holland will win!"

But why a curse? Is it from FIFA itself?

A running theme in the local media is that FIFA has taken all and although South Africa has been gifted with a warm buzz, it isn't going to come off much better. One article developed the theme that, "Everyone in South Africa was under the rule of Law, now South Africa is under the Law of FIFA." So FIFA itself needs to be careful, because Africa is traditionally a big force when it comes to casting curses.

But a parallel theme is that FIFA is prosecuting all sorts of very small operators for appropriating copyrighted terms like "World Cup 2010" (I'm serious), yet Nike, who is not a sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2010, flagrantly bases its entire advertising campaign around it. Well Nike is being prosecuted by the fates. Robinho, it might be argued, was not only the last of their featured heroes to go, but arguably the only one that did not pretty much disgrace themselves before leaving.

Uruguay v Ghana 1:1 (4:2 on penalties)

Jesus. This was the game that both Jacob and I thought should have been cancelled for lack of interest. We watched the afternoon's blockbuster (described in precise detail above) at the fan-zone down at Durban's beach, which was very cool, but we came home and went to the same local pub, The Jackie Horner, for the evening's game, as much because we needed something to eat as anything.

Lets's summarise Ghana's journey by pointing out that it began in the Group Stage by scoring only from the penalty spot and ended by missing no less than three (out of five) penalties. I'm counting the one during play obviously.

We certainly didn't regret watching it. There was much great play from both sides, but from the beginning, once again, it was clear that Ghana was being nursed by the ref. Once again, I do not think it was intentional, but Uruguay is an expedable non-favourite and the entire continent, and much of the world, including most of the referee's family and friends, wants Ghana to win, so the errors fall in one direction more than others, and only in Uruguay's favour at the least decisive moments. That doesn't cover the non-errors however, and Uruguay's free kick was well deserved legally as well as karmically. What an effing kick!

In a packed pub of celebration and joviality, which built brilliantly throughout the evening, the lagers flowing, Jacob became the only person in the place openly celebrating Uruguay's triumph. I had long before had the sense to put my neutral observer face on, but it was time to leave the Jackie Horner. We left it in a dark, quiet, deeply glum state, and I must wonder how many millions of Africans shared that dire mood last night.

Once the penalty shoot-out began, most of the technique of the players became irrelevant and all of the tactics and coaching became irrelevant. The final call in our game, once two teams have battered one another into a draw, might be seen as rather stupid, or it may be seen as the highest drama of all.

Neither the big, beautiful African, nor the suave and swarthy Latin can win the girl's heart. She herself is torn between two lovers. The suitors have cast their spells in every gentlemanly way possible, for she would only love a gentleman. The time passes, and more time. If this destructive, relentless triangle is not to last forever, there really is only one solution. Swords or pistols gentleman? That's what a penalty shoot-out is.

As the game went into the hands of the gods, I for the first time fully expected Ghana to win. This is Africa: fiery, pulsing, magical Africa. The sheer weight of will of the hundreds of millions witnessing this penalty shootout from near and far must inevitably push the Ghanians to the virtually impossible place of a semi-final spot. Hell, at that point I wanted it to, for the sheer, absurd African joy of it.

And against this weight, Jacob kept his faith in Justicia. It was still undeniable that Uruguay should win. And he was right.

Sebastian Abreu, stepping up for Uruguay's fourth and winning penalty kick, was a man possessed. From the moment the camera found him there was no doubt in my mind that he was going to do it. He looked evil, like an undead creature embalmed with supernatural, irresistable determination. His walk was grim and mechanical. And then, in some sort of zone of fate and genius, he barely kicked the thing, but gently chipped it over the Ghanian keeper's shoulder.

Extraordinary stuff.

So with six teams to go we have only Europeans and South Americans - three apiece.

If anyone's gotten a bit over all the soccer games, I feel compelled to note tht there's only five to go, and these are the ones you simply must not miss. This is the good stuff.

Why Do We Care About Football?

Book Review
Chuck Korr and Marvin Close, More than Just a Game: Football v Apartheid, Collins, London, 2008.

Most people are familiar with the famous line by one of those Pommy Soccernumaries, "Some people say that football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with this view. Football is much more important than that." A more obscure line comes from this book, from Indres Naidoo, imprisoned on Robben Island for many years and now a member of South Africa'a Parliament: "... we knew that sports is much too important to be just fun."

What do we do with lines like this? Of course the already converted know deep down that they're dead right, and say "Oh yeah!" but nobody can blame the unconverted for thinking that they're sheer nonsense. How can we say such things?

More that just a Game is a history of a football league, but it starts with a time when the prisoners on Robben Island (this is the place Nelson Mandela was incarcerated incidentally) were not allowed to play any sport at all. The opening chapters were my own first real introduction to the history of apartheid itself, the horrible repression that occurred and the barbaric, sickening conditions on the Island itself. And even for this I found the book valuable.

Of all things for the prisoners to lobby for - suffering beatings and periods of confinement and starvation to do so, over several years - the ability to play football was front and center. And they did not merely want to be given a ball to kick-about with. They wanted a League, and bit by bit, with meticulous organisation, and helped by outside pressures, they got it.

What is really astounding is this level of organisation. They drafted a constitution, had nine clubs at the peak, three divisions, rules for transfers, appeals processes and committees and a referees union. The thing that got the authors of the book going was the voluminous documentation of the whole thing, all handwritten but all in formal, legalese tone. Most of this, meanwhile, was done completely behind the prison authority's backs.

So while the sporting may have helped the prisoners' spirits and fitness, it was the organisation itself that educated the prisoners in skills that they now are using to run the country. Surprising and fascinating stuff all.

The book is not some side-story by football fans. It is real history, researched and written by historians, about a story which, if not told, would leave a real gap in accounts of the overthrow of apartheid. There is no exageration here as far as I can see, and it's not all flattering, as in the account of the 'Atlantic Raiders Affair' which is essentially a long-winded legal battle between typically self-righteous athletes over a referee decision. Even in the latter case, we see prisoners develop real skills of advocacy and argument, which would later serve them in struggle and in running the country.

Football on the island led to other sports of course, and we witness a version of the absurd tension between football codes that we are familiar with in Australia. Fortunately they come to the conclusion that the important thing is sport, and in my view Australian football codes would do well to learn parallel lessons - that the modern enemies of soccer are not rugby and AFL but apathy, bad nutrition, poor health, inadequate parkland and computer games. Anyway I digress.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read and it taught me a lot about this strange, brave country.

So what's the answer to the question? Why is football, which let's face it is an arbitrary human contrivance with no real stakes, so important? Somewhere in the midst of reading this book I came up with an answer, and it's about freedom.

Those of us who believe in a religion do so because we feel obliged to. We must. We might believe in ideals or political causes because we see them as necessary. But we believe in football because we can, because we are free to. Millions are, of course (as were some on the Island) equally free to not give a shit about football and that doesn't matter a jot. But those of us who do, believe in it because we are free. It is a highly social, organised, universal, articulated expression of human freedom.

Incidentally, 1GOAL is less than 200,000 off the 10,000,000 mark. If you haven't signed up (costs nothing), think seriously about it. Education for all is a very worthy goal, and I believe in it because it is essential for the furtherance of human civilisation.

Official Interlude

According to Harry Kewell, the Refs Favour Big Guns. I don't think it's Harry Kewell's place to say it actually, but he's broadly correct, and backs up my own and many others' observations.

Actually Harry Kewell is looking to me more and more like a poor man's Cristiano Ronaldo - brilliant, but a mummy's boy, a cheat and a whinger. One fan back at the Gulag reckoned he saw Harry dive five times in his 27 minutes. I counted just two definite dives, but impressions are real, even if they're not entirely accurate. Like Ronaldo, if he didn't cheat himself his whinging might have some credibility but as it is it just looks really bad.

But ad hominem is not an argument, and just because Harry is a cheating tool doesn't mean he's not correct. So what's happening here?

Well once again I don't think there's some official directive behind the bias. There's just a lot of close calls in a soccer game, and a lot where a quick judgement has to be made about a grey situation. Is it worth stopping the game for? Has the game gotten to a point where it needs bringing under control? Does the team being wronged have the advantage anyway? This mere mortal has to answer these questions in a flash and then, right or wrong, maintain his authority no matter what. The 22 blokes he's officiating are millionaires with egos the size of their BMWs. The pressures and the margins for error are quite mind-boggling.

So if there's some error, who do you reckon it's going to favour, overall?

If there's a broad institutional problem, it's that the refs are inexperienced at this level. In the language we would use when describing players, they haven't had enough recent gametime at a high level.

It is a FIFA thing that the World Cup must bring refs from all over the world. I think that's bullshit. The Mexican guy who gave Timmy a red card, and later officiated another game (I wish I could remember the one - help me out if you can), stopped the play for every second tackle and threw cards around like confetti. In short, quite apart from making some bad calls, he ruined the game and made it as stop-start as a rugby match.

He plies his trade in Mexico, a minor league at best, and cannot be expected to be up with the professional antics of the high-profile wankers who play in Europe. He's literally out of his league.

As the tournament has gone on my feeling is we've got some better refs, like the Hungarian guy who handled the USA v Ghana match. (I hope I can remember my mental notes correctly - I think this is the game that stood out for me in this way.) I loved it how he let the soft ones go, but still, when a decisive and clear foul was made, asserted his authority with a whistle and in the clearest cases a card. The game was allowed to flow. I especially love seeing a diving prick disadvantaged by his own antics as the play continues right over the top of his pathetic, prone body. This is good refereeing.

The Round of 16 refereeing has been better in general in this sense, in my very broad perception (I haven't kept careful notes or anything).

But the point is that given the incredible talent on the field, the speed of the game, and especially the sophisticated, highly developed techniques of both fouling and of diving, you need refs for whom this is part of their trade. That is, you need refs that regularly officiate Champions League games, EPL, Spanish and Italian League games. Otherwise, you don't just get bad decisions, you get crap games.

On a historical note, in the era of Pele and Maradona there were goals. But both of them in their biographies attest to the bruised, bleeding shins they would end the game with as defenders resorted to kicking and hacking their legs to attempt to stop them. This was bad, and it has largely been cleaned up. It's right that fouls are called and cards are given for this behaviour. But note that diving wouldn't have helped these two greats score goals, and score goals they did, because as proud athletes they kept running if they could.

Ronaldo and Kewell will never be this great, because they're habitual cheats. We need experienced, wary refs, and to reiterate another point made in previous blogs, we need post-match tribunals to properly punish the cheating (both fouling and diving) that the ref misses. It's for the good of the game.

Football and Freedom in Durban

Well if anyone wanted to demonstrate the grace and beauty of the world game an excellent game to showcase would be the one I last wrote about between Brazil and Chile. On the other hand, if someone else wanted to demonstrate that soccer is a stupid, boring sport they could do worse than exhibiting yesterday afternoon's game between Japan and Paraguay. What an extraordinary contrast.

So thank the gods for the Iberian derby last night between Spain and Portugal. But really, this Round of 16 was so imbalanced, leaving mediocre teams like Ghana and Paraguay in the mix whilst we watched the brave and skilled Portuguese and Chileans eliminated.

In the end I guess, there is as much justice in soccer as there is in life - a bit, but not a lot, and not consistently.

I woke up this morning without a cough. The air is clean. At 8.30 we were served creamy porridge with brown sugar and a splash of whiskey (this is something I am going to try at home), fresh juice, proper coffee and French toast with bacon and mushrooms. There is no games on today so we're just gonna chill, read and breathe this air. Unlike Total Sports Travel, which I highly recommend that people avoid like the plague, Somerset Guest House in Durban is simple, tasteful, civilised and pleasant. Believe it or not - and this is the really criminal part - the price is not much different.

We were warned in Australia about the possibility of being robbed in South Africa, but we were robbed before we left by Australians. Sue me Total Sports: I dare you! Everything you promised is documented and the horror that you delivered is witnessed by over 200 people. The fact that I could have stayed at the place that was in your promotion photographs, the place whose address was listed, for one third the price, is just a little irksome. For my readers the important thing is that my complaints on this front are nothing to do with South Africa. South Africa has its problems, which provided the ultimate scapegoat for everything wrong with our accommodations, but I can love South Africa for its problems. Total Sports Travel are criminals from Australia.

Another important note is that I hold no ill-will whatsoever toward Dee and Keith, who were the employees alternately on the coalface at the camp dealing with us and our constant, reasonable complaints, whilst living in the same conditions. I'm sure you're hating it as much as I was, and you really tried to help us and make us more comfortable. To the two of you, thankyou sincerely, and I truly hope you find yourself another employer. I'll write you a glowing reference on request.

Anyway, I feel free to bitch freely now for the very reason that I am free. But at the same time, it's time to enjoy.

Jesus I hope they don't read this yet as we're back there in eight days for the final couple of days of the Cup.

The next live game we're looking forward to is in one week, Match 62, the last semi-final, and the possibilities are all mouth-watering. My guess is that it will be Spain v Argentina. If Paraguay beat Spain in the Quarters I will vomit into my own scorn (to use my favourite Bernard Black line), but the Germany v Argentina clash will be a genuine blockbuster between different cultures and styles, and I would keep my money away from the bookies. I guess I'm backing Argentina due to the general South American dominating theme, and my new love for the freak Maradona, but the Germans are so organised it's disgusting. Spain v Germany would be just fine, if that's how the gods would have it.

But today and tomorrow, in this first break between games, I am going to relax and enjoy this fine city in this beautiful country.

Brazil v Chile 3:0

Chile has impressed me greatly in this World Cup. They came second in qualifying in the South American Confederation, an impressive achievement in itself, especially when you consider that, until tonight, not one of the five South American countries had been knocked out of the World Cup.

There's ten left. There remains one of five from Africa (Ghana), one of five from Asia/Oceania (Japan), none from North America and four from thirteen Europeans (Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands). This is all interesting enough, and finally it took a South American team to knock out the first South American team. Now so many of my predictions have been wrong that I have no right to self-congratulate, but I take some pleasure in noting that my broad prediction that this World Cup would be mad and that it's the South Americans that would best deal with the madness, has borne itself out.

Tonight's game between Brazil and Chile was, for my joyful sense of football wonder, the best yet. And a great team - in my opinion a really great team - came up against something more. Brazil's team are composed of gods, no less, and even the greatest of mortals cannot test the gods and survive.

Over the past couple of weeks a few people have pointed out that Brazil have looked a bit out of sorts, a bit "pedestrian" (to quote one), in general a bit ordinary. Meanwhile of course they have not lost a game and the thing is, they are so good that they can afford to play only as well as they need to. They have no need whatsoever to give their all against North Korea, Ivory Coast and (especially, as there were no stakes) Portugal. The latter Group game was, despite great hype and expectation, a boring 0:0 draw in which neither team saw the need to bring it.

If you did not watch the Brazil v Chile game I urge you with all the emphatic vehemence that I can contrive to find out when there's a replay or figure out how to download it, and watch the thing. This is the stuff that led me to sacrifice so much of my life to this sport in the first place, the stuff that turned watching a bit of sport for me into an act of worship. You'd be right to point out how rare a game like this is, but I would only reply that it is the rarity of such a spectacle that makes soccer the most sublime pursuit in the world. Millions try, and occasionally - very occasionally - 11 succeed.

Personal digression... Jacob and I arrived in Durban today and booked into a B&B. The air, as soon as we got off the plane, was noticeably easier to breathe, due to the warmth, lack of smog and lack of altitude. We had proper hot showers. We have our own bathroom, and the capacity to make tea. We lay on beds that are not thin waifs of foam laid over iron cleats. Our room is sealed, tasteful and warm. There are birds here. I wore shorts and bare feet in my first sojourn into the neighbourhood. We are indulging in 10 days of relative luxury compared to the frankly disgusting conditions of Total Sports Travel Football Village in Johannesburg. I already love Durban, and eff knows why the centre of the World Cup is not here, as it could have been so much better for South African tourism if it was.

We watched the Netherlands' convincing and predictable defeat of Slovakia on the TV downstairs. Then this evening we head out to find a pub, where we ate steaks and watched the above game in a very cosy and cool atmosphere. So life is on the up. We're gonna like this town.

But enough digression. Why are the South American teams doing so well? I have the beginnings of a theory. Spain and Germany have been the most impressive of the European teams in the sense of virtuosic football, the sort of football that Fozzie describes so well in his book and that SBS does its best to teach us to appreciate. It's a very sophisticated, developed football of short passing from the back along the ground, and highly disciplined tactical shape. According to many this is what we're all aiming for. Any of the lesser football countries are also in the process of pursuing this sort of football, including Australia, with its Dutch emphasis.

But both Spain, Italy and Germany have been shown up by gutsy, spirited but less sophisticated methods from Switzerland, New Zealand and Serbia respectively, and we all rue that Australia didn't at least have a go at the same against the Germans. It seems to me that 'champagne football', with all the time and effort required to develop, can become limited by its own orthodoxy.

The South Americans have highly educated coaches as well, and no shortage of sophistication, but they have something more. They dance, and I refer especially to the Brazilians and Argentinians. The long ball into the corner, the chip, the long switch and the completely unexpected are all part of their game as well as the short passing along the ground within a disciplined tactical shape. That is, their options are not limited by orthodoxy. All of these great teams from Europe and South America also have individuals capable of great flair, which has been a distinctive key to this tournament. My feeling is that however powerful a team of brilliant technicians within a highly considered system can become, if it becomes the whole objective the improvised dance and individual flair are somewhat sacrificed. At this tournament in particular, in an unfamiliar setting and with new distractions (like the bloody vuvuzela which stops anyone from even being able to hear themselves think, let alone be able to communicate adequately among one another), these more random factors come to the fore.

The sort of technical orthodoxy I'm talking about, which has become very popular globally as importing successful European coaches becomes widespread throughout the world, should not be undermined. I'm convinced for example that Australia should continue to pursue this sort of virtuosity. North Korea, for another example, had developed enough to hold out (mostly) against even Brazil, but they cannot keep it up against what is, for lack of a better description, a divine dance. And they have trained so much to achieve their desired tactical approach that their options against different teams are limited.

Like a great martial artist (and anyone familiar with the writings of Bruce Lee will best know what I mean), you need all the technique you can get, but then you must be willing to dance. A single style is not enough.

As this tournament goes on I'm thinking more and more that the Final will be a showdown between Brazil and Argentina. If that is the case don't miss it even for your own wedding.

Beyond Nelspruit

Well the consensus around here is that changing the Prime Minister was an overreaction to the Socceroos failing to get through the group stage. Craig Foster and Jesse Fink are both convinced, for somewhat different reasons, that Australia 'failed' at this World Cup, and I think they do us a disservice with this view.

Firstly it is worth reiterating that on paper Australia's team is pretty crap. Our best outfield player, Timmy Cahill, plays for Everton. We have not one player that has played Champions League football. Not one. [Ed: Thanks to Jesse Fink (below in comments) for the correction - Brett Holman has played Champions League football.] Some teams, like Italy (oh dear), are stacked with them. Timmy and Mark Schwarzer are probably the only players in our team that would make the English team. So coaching them to a World Cup is a serious professional challenge for a coach, and anything they achieve is impressive.

There is no adequate apology for the game against Germany. Coach Pim took a large risk in essentially throwing the game and hoping to keep Germany's goal count down (ouch), and it was a stuff up. But Germany played sublimely and we lost our star to an unreasonable red card, making a bad situation worse.

As the group games unfolded it became clear that the African teams were not going to do well overall, and Ghana began to be called the continent's 'last hope'. This narrative went on with great consternation, even a sort of fear. Germany would clearly win our group but there was actual concern that Australia might pip Ghana. In itself this is pretty disgusting anyway, as I always thought we were to have a fair competition and that the idea was that the best team would win.

And Ghana really didn't show any class against Australia, even though we again went down early to another red card, and hence had neither of our best players on the field. We should give our 10 men credit for the point they held in that game, but really, Ghana did not look up to it at all. The media we get here (we don't get SBS or any Australian media) looked frankly uncomfortable.

I am not saying that there was any deliberate, conscious bias from referees, but the pressure was certainly on. Errors were going to go in favour of the 'desired outcome'. In that last game against Serbia, where Australia, still unable to field its best team, showed its spirit and quality, virtually every decision for the first four fifths of the match (before it was too late) went against us. Now I am a patriot and I am familiar with the bias of patriots, so to be sure about this I will have to study the game some time and do a careful count of incidents and decisions. But this was truly my impression, over and over and over again.

There was five minutes of hope, when we were 2:0 up and we heard that Germany was beating Ghana 1:0. Another goal for Australia and Germany respectively, and we were through. That's how close we were. But Germany had set up camp, content, in their half of the field, and our ref, as far as I'm concerned, did everything in his power to make sure we did not get any more goals.

And the Socceroos were brilliant in spirit, even as their journey ended. After the match they spent a long time tributing the fans, kicking balls into the crowd, signing things etc, even as they were clearly emotionally finished. Lucas Neils' tears said everything. Congratulations lads. That was no failure. That was a victory of a team who nobody in the World believed in except for Australian fans (the Australian media didn't). My love for you has only increased, and I am proud to be associated with you.

If anyone wants to read an excellent, informed post-mortem of the Socceroos campaign, I honestly suggest you bypass the mainstream media altogether and read Tony Tannous's. There's no big anti-media agenda in this recommendation, and he doesn't really even reflect my own views - it's just the best article I've found, and he's much more likely to be right than me.

Quite aside from the game, it was a brilliant day in Nelspruit. For once, more by good fortune than design I'm afraid, we got to the game with plenty of time to occupy a pub. It is a great pub in Nelspruit, and we packed every corner and spilled onto the street. Note to Total Sports Travel, and any other tour company: Soccer fans don't just want to get to the game on time for
kickoff; we actually want to have a good time - ie. It is absolutely essential to occupy a pub before a game.


Oh yes, let me tell you about transport to the Nelspruit stadium. Our bus parks near the pub, which is fine because we had heaps of time, but it can't go to the stadium. To get to the stadium, we have to catch a mini-bus which goes to a park n' ride area, where we get on a big bus to the stadium. It's hard to imagine, perhaps, how inefficient this is in practice. After the game, to get the 40,000 odd people back into town, the reverse occurred. We stood in a mass, coralled by fences, as about 60 people at a time were taken off in busses, to then again find mini-busses. There was no coordination of this and it seemed a minor miracle that we all managed to get back to our original bus. Mind you it took hours.

Anyway, for anyone who has been frequenting this site, I'm really sorry I haven't blogged for days. The day in Nelspruit I could feel myself holding back a flu, and the next day it hit me with full force. I also got a bit homesick and miserable, missing my shop and my beautiful fiance, and the conditions at the Total Sports Soccer Village didn't help. Alongside unreliable internet and the worst conditions for writing possible, these are my excuses. Truly I apologise.


I guess a new phase of this trip had started too. The patriotic part of the trip has finished, with the knocking out of Australia, and now it's just about enjoying beautiful football. I've bought an Argentina scarf as Maradona, tool that he is, has completely won me over with his cool and class. He operates completely out of the box and, for my money, the box sucks. Jacob and I are seeing Argentina play Mexico tonight at Soccer City.

Then tomorrow we are off to Durban for 10 days in a decent B&B. There I hope to relax a bit, get some writing done, and see the semi-final on the 7th (maybe Argentina v Spain). I can't wait for a good bed, hot showers and internet access.

Morning before Nelspruit

There was dread as much as excitement in the camp yesterday about going to see Australia play Serbia today. The dread has little to do with the fate of our beloved team, who we will be happy to see play well, hopefully with a victory to ensure that Australia has not embarassed itself. The prospect of us getting to the Round of 16 is pretty slim after all. The dread is six hours on a bus, without much faith in the driver or the organisation. I'll be buying a half bottle of whiskey for the trip. Beer just makes you need to piss. You really don't want to know how people deal with this problem on long trips. We've also stocked up on sports drinks and lollies.

And it's crunch week for so many teams. Yesterday Groups A and B got sorted out. Proud Bafana Bafana have ended their competition, and I guess I hope that Australia can today finish with as much dignity (and four points). France of course has fallen hard, still mired in the curse of the Irish. Nigeria and Greece have also gone. Greece in particular, the way they played, was an embarassment to Western Civilisation.

The general theme remains of the South Americans doing well and the Europeans falling. But truly I see Portugal's 7:0 demolishing of North Korea the other day as a bit of a turning point in the Cup, and I don't think we'll see many surprises this week. Many teams can play like champions sometimes (like South Africa for the first half last night). Virtually no team can do it every time. But when the pressure's on, the great teams tend to get it together.

For that reason I don't think Ghana has a goose's chance of defeating Germany today, for example. England will beat Slovenia and the USA will beat Algeria - I consider these results fairly certain. But for the Serbia vs Australia game there's no clear favourite, and I honestly think the boys can do it.

And the glimmer of hope is that Germany will do a Portugal on Ghana, whilst Timmy Cahill goes crazy on Serbia's goal. If both of those things happen, we'll be booked for a game in Rustenburg against either England or the USA on Saturday June 26th at 8.30pm. I wouldn't put a lot of money on this, but while there is hope we will relish our dreams.

Last night we went to a sort-of mall called Monte Casino. It is bling city. In fact I don't imagine there's a place like it in my city of Brisbane. Maybe on the Gold Coast somewhere, but it would be for the very wealthy. Here it is, as far as I can see, for Westerners like myself to be made to feel very wealthy.

On entry you have to pass security and get scanned for metal. What you get into is an indoor medieval village. The roof is lit like clouds on a blue sky and there is a very good impression of being outdoors. It's weird realising that you can't smoke for example. You go inside individual buildings which are shops, restaurants, clubs and the like, then go 'outside' again, though you're still inside.

Then of course you buy, very inexpensively, five star meals (amazing steak, about $17), cocktails (about $2.50 each) and whatever the hell else you want. Of course you've got to get in there first, but 'World Cup fan' seemed to be the magic words.

I would hate to imagine how people are screened from places like this, but when I went outside (properly outside) for a smoke I saw a sign, a red line through a pistol, with the words, "This is a no gun zone. Gun lockers located on level 2."

Oh good.

Go the Socceroos!

A Dialogue with Hundreds of Years of Oppression

I mention Mark a bit. He's white and sort of the boss of the infrastructure around here. He has long hair and a whispy beard, a little overweight and clothed like he hasn't had a girlfriend to sort out his wardrobe for far too long, but his face is handsome, and suits his prescription John Lennon sunglasses. I don't know if I like him, mainly due to the way he speaks to the black workers, but he's been a great source of local information and very enthusiastic to help us. He had advised us, for example, that the black guys won't join in playing soccer unless they're asked. Actually he was mostly worried about the prospect of his employees playing while they should be working, but the information was useful.

When Jacob came in from the afternoon kickabout yesterday, halfway through the Chile game, he looked excited. He reads my blog and knows my interest in racial reconciliation through football, and shares it I think. It had happened. A group of locals had been passing and the guys invited them to play. I wish I was there to watch, but apparently they were bloody good, including a couple of around Jacob's age, and a small kid. Small joys I suppose. I just think it's cool, and I'm guessing these guys will be back with their mates.

Owen is very black. He lives in a space that makes Harry Potter's cupboard look pretty roomy, at the front gate. He is security, and is there to let us in and out of the place day and night.

The whole place, about 150 metres square, is surrounded by fences topped by barbed wire and (in some places) electric fences. I've checked it out from the outside and it looks pretty breachable to me, which is not helped by some of the blokes' habit of burning parts of the fence on the fire.

There is no organised firewood really, though every day one of the workers brings a pile of all sorts of scrap timber from wherever on the place - there are corners of the compound that are full of all sorts of junk. It always runs out, and drunk boys burn things when it's cold. There are some boys that should not drink at all, as we all know.

I want to get back to Owen though. He is about 5'10, with a round likeable face. He's from Zimbabwe, and his English is poor, but he likes to communicate, and has a great smile. As with many encounters here, it took a while for his body language to start saying he was not inferior to me. This morning around the fire it was just him and I and for the first time he had no humble hunch. He was looking me in the eye and had his shoulders squared like a proud man. This was particularly important to me because I had never tipped him. Of course when there's money involved people get friendly very quickly, but the friendliness is cheapened by it.

But I still wanted to tip him. All the Australians (I think) are in the habit of tipping well and constantly - the amounts are not really that much, after all, and I think we're very conscious of how privileged we are here and the reactions make it clear how much a little bit can help. But although the bar workers get tipped, our security doesn't because there's no money changing hands to start with. Anyway this morning I gave him a hundred rand (about $15) with a short speech thanking him for watching out for us.

It was a mistake. He immediately regained his humble hunch and said, "God bless you" far too many times for a man's comfort. How can I regret giving it to him though?

I don't know who I am in this situation.

I'll talk more about the compound (I could use 'ghetto' but 'compound' is reasonably accurate) and the people from now on I think. I've wanted to from the moment I got here but needed some time to watch and collect impressions and think about them. This is a unique experience for me and my son and all of us.

Notes from Rustenburg

Australia's bid for the greatest trophy in the world pretty much ended yesterday, but our pride was restored at the same time.

For myself, the shambolic five hour bus trip home (only about 150kms) was one of the most miserable experiences of my life, but Holman's goal was the height of the tournament.

The goal, and the 10 minutes or so that Australia led the game against Ghana, who were frankly playing like shit, was likely the greatest actual patriotic joy we'll get. After Kewell's red card we were devastated of course, and although the decision was correct, the succession of bad decisions against us had the crowd bristling with murderous hatred toward the ref. And we felt terrible, robbed, humiliated, violated.

And then we got to witness the real mettle of our great national team, as in the second half, in which at first I was simply waiting for us to be defeated, we first held the Ghanians out, then slowly began to dominate them. The players and the coach can both be proud, and today we fans do not feel as deflated as we did after defeat by the Germans. The Socceroos showed their quality. Love them.

The Ghanian fans celebrating after the game afterwards were colourful, spirited and so joyous that you might have thought they'd just beaten Brazil in the finals. It was kind of weird, and I just felt like saying to each of them (I did to a couple), "You do know you played like shit, apparently can't score a goal from open play, and barely managed to hold your luck against 10 men for over an hour, don't you?" Truly, if I was a Ghanian fan, I would be depressed after that game, and that probably reflects a general higher expectation we have of our team.

Was the referee one-sided? Is there an effort from FIFA to make sure at least one African team gets through the group stage, as it is percieved happened with Korea in 2002? Around here, if I suggested otherwise I would be called naive. There is a very, very strong perception that that's how things work and that, as one fan put it, "FIFA won't do small countries any favours."

Whether this is true or not, it looks like it. The resistance by FIFA to video technology for important decisions butresses this perception, and to many simply screams the existence of institutional corruption. So long as a ref's decision on the field has no accountability to anything, even if the entire world can see that it's wrong, then the ref can have any concievable motivation to make a decision. This stinks, and I hope one day our great sport gets up to date, even so that it can appear clean.

Of course it ain't over 'till it's over, and Australia still has two slender chances to become second in the group. That's the only time I've seen Ghana play (we were in transit when they defeated Serbia by a soft penalty), but from what I've heard what I saw is what to expect, and there is pretty much no way a determined Germany who have to win won't defeat them. But if Ghana do prevail, and we defeat Serbia, we're through.

The other way is for the Socceroos, through an inspired Timmy Cahill perhaps, to defeat Serbia by six goals minus the number of goals that Germany beats Ghana by. So if Germany beat Ghana 3:0 (certainly possible enough for an outside punt) and we do the same to Serbia (less possible, but not beyond hope if Timmy is in form), we'll be through on goal difference.

Pray to the soccer gods. Make a home shrine to Johnny Warren and sacrifice a pig or something. The gods are at work at this cup. I don't know if we're in their plans beyond the group stages but I am sure that they haven't had the last laugh yet.

For an analyst's view of the game, see Mike Salter's The Strength of Ten.

Morning Before Rustenburg

Well I'm up early today to try to get some media-surfing and blogging done before the bus trip to Rustenburg for Australia's do-or-die against Ghana. There's no solid confidence in the camp, but more of a determined patriotism.

We're leaving at 10.30am for a 1.30pm game. That sounds fine because it supposedly takes about two hours. However, our experience is that 10.30 means 11.00 at the earliest, that bus drivers get lost as often as not, and that with only one road in and out of Rustenburg, the traffic may be crap. So there was an attempted organised effort to insist on a 9.30am departure. Total Sports Travel said no. If we are late for this game there will be a revolt. There is already pretty broad discontentment with the travel company, for all sorts of reasons, some of them reasonable.

But last night they did pretty well with the official function. Ok, Kevin Muscat is not the greatest of drawcards but even he came across ok, happily vocalising his discontent with the way Pim is running our national team. We did properly get wined and dined, and there was entertainment. Bad (but still kind of cool) African music, dancing (though pathetically, only one girl of all of us got up and danced) and we had our hands washed and our faces painted by pretty black girls. The food was really good, diverse and abundant - heaps of meats and fish and pretty much everything else you could easily name. There would have been more entertainment but we had to watch England destroy Algeria, which they completely failed to do.

All three games yesterday were surprises actually. Weird shit is happening at this Cup, which can only give us a bit of hope for Australia today.

But there's so much happening, and so much in my head that I think might be good things to write down, that I better tell a story at least before I hit "Publish."

A couple nights ago I had been surfing the net for World Cup news, with the rare treat of a late night with internet access, when I began to realise what was missing around the camp. Because the big screen is on pretty much 24/7, with games, replays, analysis and news, there's no stereo and hence pretty much no music. It was about 1.00 in the morning I guess, when thinking this I wandered outside for a cup of tea and a smoke by the smouldering fire. The only party left were the bar workers, very drunk, but playing music - not very loudly - with a phone.

So there was music, and it was really wonderful. Basically the guy put on Bob Marley's "Lets Get Together" over and over again, and it was good to sit with these guys, the colour of the night, smoking and chatting, alternately listening to them speak together in their own language.

I asked them if they felt all us white guys felt like brothers, and they were adamant that they did, that the past was behind, and that we were all just f***ing people on the same planet. They also feel strongly that the World Cup is very good for their country. Their faces lit up and their slurred accent became understandable when they spoke of it, even though their team had just been flogged.

Much earlier, before the day's games, I was sitting watching Jacob and others (about 10 a side) playing The Game in the park across the road from our compound (it does feel a bit compound-like). Jacob had come over to join just myself and another Ozzie, Matthew, who looks strikingly like a young Nicholas Cage. As we took refuge from the cold air in the sun, a very businesslike bloke, a 'coloured', came over to chat. His name was Peter and he was beaming with joy.

Peter explained that he had never seen a group of white people playing in the park before, nor 'coloureds' like himself. He thought it was wonderful. He thought that if people just started doing it, others would join - that there was still a barrier of fear. I glanced around at the barbed wire and electric fences on every property in sight, and wondered what the barrier was made of. But the point is he thought it was football that could help break down the barriers between the people in his own community.

Well, duh!

Like the black barworkers, Peter also felt that the World Cup was excellent for South Africa. It was warming that a group of Australian soccer fans might have played its own, small role in the process of reconciliation in this country. I kept watching the game and felt I could see the incongruency - the sense, from a certain point of view, that they shouldn't be there. The powerful thing perhaps is that the crew had no idea at all that they shouldn't be there. It's a park.

Then Peter started talking about God a bit and soon after I politely, with proper candour, mentioned that there was no point preaching to me he made his polite farewells and left.

Go the Socceroos! I will love you no matter what.

Some Bits n Pieces

Jacob handed me the packet and said, "You can have the rest." I could feel that there were three M&Ms left. I'd just managed to aquire tickets for us to the Final, so I thought of who might be in it when I revealed the three M&Ms. Two red and and Orange. The M&Ms say it will be Spain vs the Netherlands, with Spain to win. You read it here first.

For any of the new readers, I did have a bold and foolish attempt to predict the whole cup. So far on my system of 1 point for a correct result and 3 points for a correct score, Jacob's beating me 11:10, from a top possible score of 60. So I wouldn't trust either of us there.

Now some teams will start to be knocked out of the competition and others, like South Africa last night, will be put on wood.

France v Mexico 0:2

As I have previously discussed, the French are cursed by the entire Irish population of the World. When I saw the Mexicans in their green, I could only see the shamrock, and France's humiliation was inevitable.

The game itself was a little tedious in the first half, but you could already see that the Mexicans had their group mind working and the French, with their superior team sheet, did not. This was the collective defeating individual flair.

Not good for South Africa of course, who were hoping for a draw.

One odd thing about my experience here is that I'm actually not getting much media about the World Cup at all, due to access and time. But I have no doubt that there's an enormous variety of game analysis in the mainstream press. Of amateur Australian bloggers, it's the same old that I'll recommend highly: Mike Salter and Tony Tannous.

Bafana Bafana

Bafana Bafana, the official, very catchy name of the South African Soccer team, more-or-less means, "Go Lads!!" I think much of the World wanted Bafana Bafana to do well against Uruguay last night and get through their group. But sort of like supporting Australia against Germany, anyone who knows football also knew they had little chance. Unless they can perform a miracle against France (and it would be a brilliant time for a miracle) South Africa will be the first nation ever to host a World Cup and lose the Group stage. That's embarassing for a nation who the whole World was hoping would be lifted by this event. It's embarassing for Africa, which is unfortunate.

Off the field on the fan front, the Vuvuzela is South Africa's equivelent of Australia's, "Oi, Oi, Oi!!" Clumsy, loud and drowning. It is a vile thing. Jacob couldn't hear properly for two days after the opening ceremony and we have bought ear plugs. Worse than that when people go to games partly to experience the sounds and songs of the famous English, German and Brazilian fans, they are dissappointed, as all you can hear are horns. It has a very cool name but the fact is the Vuvuzela, which FIFA endorsed as a 2010 thing and fans from many countries have gotten into, is the lowest form of fan culture ever devised. It is more than embarassing - it is a health hazard, a disturbance of the peace (we're talking up to 140 decibels), and a clearfell of any other fan expression; a monoculture of sound. The Nations' anthems, thankfully, provide a very brief respite before the games.

I wonder if there is a parallel with the whole event being in South Africa. Everyone knew it was ambitious, some doubted that it was properly feasible, but everyone of good will hoped that South Africa would show that it had entered the modern world, boding well for the continent as a whole. Like the South African team, it has half-impressed, and to say, "Fantastic job," would be a little patronising, because it has not been a fantastic job.

Planning is the precise thing missing in South Africa. As we travel around we notice excellent roads, a variety of really interesting architecture and all the shops, cars and advertising that you would expect in a modern city. But it seems to be, like the Greek football team, randomly scattered across the landscape. There is apparently no town planning. When you get beer at the stadiums, there's beer, people to serve, fridges and the like, but to get a beer the worker has to travel five metres, negotiating obstacles and other workers, to get the beer, which is pretty much the only thing they're selling. Even a layperson could manage a better industrial design.

The World Cup has taken South Africa's infrastructure by surprise. The internet in particular simply cannot handle the influx of wealthy people skyping, exchanging photos and watching endless video on their computers. It's not just our bodgy little Soccer Village, whole areas go off line at once. Australia take note for its World Cup bid. Are we sure our broadband system will handle it?

So when South Africa were roundly put in their place last night, I had some worries apart from the fact that my chosen team in the game had failed. I worry for the mood in the country, which is stretched and tired as it is. And I worried for the overall message that seems to be being reinforced by the loss - that Africa is almost ready for the world stage. Now we get to see if the country has the professionalism to maintain the work and energy required without Bafana Bafana. Jacob has pointed out that if you want people to be instantly friendly you just have to say enthusiastically, "Bafana Bafana." What for when this becomes a very insensitive thing to do?

This World Cup has had plenty of problems already and anyone who doesn't think there will be many more needs to quarry their head. But there are good signs everywhere of development, a developing middle class, a real cross-racial patriotism and a bright future for a modern nation. Africa will get there, especially South Africa. You just have to wonder if it is a bird pushed from its nest a day too early; if by showcasing Africa's unfolding modernity prematurely it has merely been exposed as an upstart.

Please don't get me wrong. Africa is wonderful and this World Cup is a hoot. Perhaps it's even too early for me to express some of these things, but I think lots of people are already thinking them.

No Title

But the Training Runs on Time

I'm up after the Brazil v N Korea game, and I'm writing fresh. That is, I have seen no media whatsoever beyond the showing of the game itself. Regardless of whether I turn out to have unique and wondrous insight or be entirely full of shit, I think this is a valuable form of writing for the reader.

Unfortunately however I won't be publishing this in about half an hour as I should, but in the next day or so, because the internet here is inconsistent at best, despite the fact that wireless internet was the headline feature of the advertisements of the travel company. Who do I blame? The company, who is also frustrated and certainly trying? South Africa, where there have been five star hotels without hot water? It is easier sometimes, and less stressful, to blame the gods. Anyway I'm going to adopt a habit of writing off-line as much as possible and then just publishing the lot when I get on the net.

One result of this new procedure is that I'm abandoning pictures for now. I'll still take them and collect them, and will publish a selection eventually, but I did hope to use a lot of pictures in my World Cup blogging and have promised it, so I apologise. Blame me, Total Sports Travel, South Africa or all three.

Brazil v North Korea 2:1

Well that was quite something. Brazil, the king of the World, defeats the lowest ranked nation at the World Cup by just one goal.

What has North Korea done? Most of its players, unlike any of the great soccer nations, don't play in the big European leagues. In fact most of them play only within North Korea.

It's like this totalitarian state read the textbooks on how to train players in their technique and in their tactics, then with the precise military discipline that only a totalitarian state can bring to a sporting team, just did it. The result is a lesson for everyone, and in a sense backs up Craig Foster's thesis about football development, and about how to go about playing football.

Fozzie might have even advised the team, and if he had he would have been proven right to insist on open, attacking football, even if your opponent is superior. Fozz may be naive to think that it's possible in the Australian environment (I hope not), and we don't have a totalitarian system to enforce this stuff, but there it is.

The North Korean players lost the ball too much. That's the main mistake they made really. It's a mistake you make when your opposition is technically superior and vastly more experienced at high pressure games. It's because they lost the ball so much that they had less possession and were so often on the defensive. It doesn't mean they played defensively.

Every time DPR got the ball they played from the back and attempted to attack by dribbling and passing. They did so in a system which they had clearly drilled and drilled. Apparently it was a 4-5-1 system, as is Australia's, but as Fozzie says, the shape isn't the indicator of attacking or defending, but what the players are doing. If they didn't give away so much possession by mistake, they would actually look like a very direct, attacking team, because that was what they were trying to do. It's not easy to be tactically virtuosic, but they stuck at it. A few times in the first half they even nearly got there, but they lacked the individual flair to make the final punch.

I'm just assuming here what was absolutely apparent. Brazil are brilliant. Their touch and their game is so silky it's disgusting. Their defense is experienced and brilliant, and even the best team in the World would find it challenging. Their attack is sublime, and indeed it was pure individual acts of genius - something the totalitarian regime may have more difficulty producing - that won the day for them. It's hard to say that either one was due to defensive mistakes.

The thing about defending is you don't have a ball to lose, and therefore it is in defense that DPR really impressed, since losing the ball was the only thing they did wrong. They were, quite frankly, a bloody tough nut for Brazil to crack.

DPR switched from attack to defense in an instant when they did lose the ball. They did not run around like madmen the way Paraguay looked good against Italy for a half, until they were stuffed. DPR were efficient in movement, not lunging around, not tackling madly, but maintaining a disciplined, tactically polished system of three lines, defending from the front line and accomplishing overlaps forward or back on either wing when necessary.

Their defense was beautiful, but that did not mean they wanted to just defend. If they wanted to defend they would have just booted the ball forward each time. They did boot the ball forward - about twice - and one resulted in their goal. If you think that means that if you just boot the ball forward you will score more goals I reckon you're wrong. If that's all you do the main result is to allow the opposition to swamp your target man and overwhelm him each time. No, DPR played textbook football at an extremely high standard except that, to Brazil, they lost the ball too often.

What I suspect Fozzie might also say is that this demonstrates that you don't have to have a huge population to play excellent football, you don't need to be big (the Koreans looked half the Brazilian's size), and you don't have to have super fitness and stamina. You just need to teach the people who do play really well, and use the most modern tactical training as well.

I reviewed half of Fozzie's book, Fozz on Football in Reading (I hadn't finished it). I will review it fully some time but I will reiterate here that although Fozz is a nutjob, he is also right about the key things - which turn out to be the football things rather than his nonsense about politics, linguistics and morality. I recommend the book with the qualification that you'll have to choke on your own scorn a fair bit in between being extremely well educated.

Anyway, if North Korea can continue playing like this they could scare Portugal and Ivory Coast, and that was not expected.

Catching Up

The infrastructure in South Africa is frankly pretty crappy, and stories abound. My own main frustration has been a lack of consistent internet, and once again I apologise. The following is dated, but still something I'd like to communicate.

It was a pretty subdued atmosphere in Total Sports Soccer Village the day after Australia's loss, partly deflation but also sheer exhaustion. It was a bloody long day.

This first photo is the fans gathering before departure in the morning. There's often a kick about going on, as in the foreground, and the only topic of conversation is soccer. Um... heaven really.

As I indicated the other day, the travel was always going to be arduous, with two busses and a plane each way, but the journey there at least was really fun, buoyed by the whole fan atmosphere thing. That first game between South Africa and Mexico was wonderful, as I've said, but in retrospect the only thing missing was the Socceroos and their fans.

Basically the journey was a party, despite quite a bit of chaos, including Jacob and I nearly missing the plane in Jo'burg (we had lunch and a couple hours free time at the airport for some reason). The party atmosphere waxed as the journey progressed, until the bus dropped us about 4 or 5 miles from the stadium in Durban, when it really started.

There was a confluence of fans on that walk - German and Australian (and sundry), and it was effing brilliant. We stirred the Germans as best we could. "We must respect our opponents; so don't mention the holocaust thing!!!" They were good humoured enough, but the convict comeback was a bit lame.

But I want to talk a bit about us Australian fans. In a sense I think we are as undeveloped as a soccer nation off the field as on it. I've talked before about the need to sing, and we did, in the final march, put up a prett damn fine rendition of Walzing Matilda, but really, we're pretty short of material. When we got on the plane someone got the, "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!" going, to which the much smaller number of Germans replied with their national anthem (which unlike ours has a good melody and is really quite moving). I felt we were upstaged.

It occurs to me that this is a bit of a fan parallel to our deficiencies on the field. "Oi, Oi" and "Ole, Ole, Ole" seem to be desperation tactics, for want of a well developed tradition of play, parallel to the physicality and long-balls on the field. We just have so far to go.

Anyway, with the internet up I wanted to post something now, but Ivory Coast is now playing Portugal, so I must go watch. Hopefully I will be back soon and frequently!

Poetry

Well what a magnificent display of football. 'Football' isn't a good word for it, especially in Australia when it puts the game on a par with Rugby and AFL as an artform, because football at its most virtuosic is so far superior to any other ball game that it should be considered alongside ballet or jazz rather than alongside these games.

I know I overuse hyperbole and um... bullshit, but I'm very serious here. You can't be a professional soccer player without having played all your life with very good coaching. The latter is still rare in Australia but steps have been taken to begin to rectify this - needless to say you wouldn't let a volunteer parent teach your child ballet or piano. In the great football countries, where the game is understood by the media and the public, it's virtually against the law.

To merely lambast the Socceroos for losing that match so convincingly, as much of Australian media is doing, essentially demonstrates ignorance. That German team is extraordinary (and yes, I must retract all my desperate attempts at optimism and say I was being ridiculous). It's hard to explain what I mean, especially because I'm a novice myself at this, but I'll have a go.

When you watch a team like Germany (and coming up I'd guess, Brazil, Italy and Spain), I encourage people to have a look around at what's happening off the ball. Try to see the 'group mind' I tried to describe a little while ago. When the ball is passed, try, just for a change, to watch what the passer does next rather than the person who receives the ball. Further, try to see what the third person in a triangle does at the same time. Watch the shape move, then (this is much easier with a live game) take a wider view still and watch the other shapes on the field respond in kind. Quite aside from the obscenely difficult skills of accurate passing, trapping a speeding ball and controlling a ball at speed, for a team to reach a high level tactically, as the Germans have, is a truly high art, to the extent that in a World of millions of soccer teams, it is extremely rare for it to be really there.

Of course it is depressing for a patriot to watch their team get so fully outclassed, but by half time I had moved from disappointment to a growing, awe-struck admiration of what the German team could do. They are no longer athletes. They are poets. More accurately perhaps, they are jazz musicians jamming. They were beautiful and I loved them for their beauty. I know not everyone gets into this - football for its own sake, for beauty, but I put it out there as a suggestion. When you see it, you will never regret it again any more than someone who's acquired a taste for opera will ever regret it.

The greatest regret for us from that game is not the scoreline of course, but the loss of Timmy Cahill through a red card (probably not deserved). Ghana and Serbia are much more realistic opposition for the Socceroos, but Timmy's loss will make it damn hard.

Anyway, our mighty Socceroos were roundly outclassed. We may talk about the 'dream generation' of 2006, but Australia has never played close to that standard. We may get there one day, but only if we want to make the effort as a nation. I hope we do.

I'll write more later. Still struggling with internet and photos.

Off to Durban

Well today is a big one, which will seriously test the organisation around here. Bus to airport, plane to Durban, bus to stadium, game, then the reverse to get us back here by about 2.30am (all going to plan).

Australia vs Germany. Can we beat the Krauts?

Life around the Total Sports Soccer Village is pretty cool and relaxed. Games on the big screen are watched by a packed, engaged room.

The complex is surrounded by barbed wire and electric fences. A big guy hangs around at the front and lets us in and out. Actually pretty much everywhere you go there is a black guy sort of mooching around the front. No uniform or anything, but that's security.

Yesterday Jacob and I went for a 15 minute walk to the local shopping complex and market. These people are really wonderful - colourful and friendly. I could spend the whole day looking at (black) women's hair. From fairy floss silk to ropes, plaits, elaborate braids, every possibility. Clearly their hair is very important to them, and it's very cool.

Anyway, then we walked back, and at a crossing stopped next to a lady. She looked very uncomfortable, and I thought maybe it was us, so I just sort of tried to keep a little distance and act happy and cool. She told us she'd just that morning had her phone stolen at gunpoint. She was very upset, visibly distressed. Hmm. One of the workers around here who I've become mates with reckons, "It's really not that bad. I've lived here all my life and only been mugged eight times." Oh good.

Anyways, blah blah. I'm still working on my photo publishing technique. My notebook is not loaded with software (it can't handle Photoshop), so I'm uploading straight from camera to Picasa, and can't figure out how to save the pics at lower resolution. Any advice welcome.

I'll have more after the day's exciting ordeal.