World Cup: we all won it
So Spain won; South Africa won; Football won – albeit scrappily; and we, the world, won.
The final was the only game I watched in its entirety. My support for Spain was both emotional and irrational.
I love the language, I like the feel of the country, and I have an interest in its evolving relationship with its erstwhile empire in the Americas – where one of my earliest journalistic enthusiasms lies.
It’s one of the possibly irrational reasons why I feel an Iberia/BA fusion makes such sense – a global liaison that appeals to some of the best of two old empires and results in very little duplication of service.
There is much about domestic football that I find alienating, not least its organisation. You can’t vaguely support Brighton & Hove Albion all your life without feeling the frustration of a sport organised for the sole benefit of the footballing elite.
Alienation lies in its maleness too, and its machismo – particularly off the pitch.
And this was where South Africa won. Was it the vuvuzelas wot won it? Did they still the drunken maleness that so has so often brought the game low in the North.
How come fewer ‘fans’ were arrested throughout the entire competition than are often arrested in a single day of football in the North? Was it the altitude? The Southern winter temperatures?
This has been a watershed for South Africa. A massive moment that Mandela himself did not NEED to attend even if he had been fit enough – the first glimpse of a confident post-Mandela South African age?
A watershed too for a vision of a South Africa that can act in unity to produce so coherent and tangible a result.
Don’t worry, the rose tinted specs are off – for sure the contest allowed a glimpse of the country’s inequalities and challenges.
But the reality that South Africa accounts for 27 per cent of the entire African continent’s GDP speaks of its role to come if this World Cup energy can be sustained.
That’s a big ‘if’. But we can be grateful to football for what has passed. I’m glad I watched the World Cup Final. Despite being an indifferent football follower, I got a lot out of it – I am optimist enough to suspect that in one way and another, the whole world did.
Related posts:
- 1989-2009: interviewing Nelson Mandela
- Tiger Tiger burning bright, in the forests of the night
- Dead aid to Africa's North-South Corridor?
- Interviewing Jimmy Greaves. Or was that Norman Hunter?
- Big thoughts from Copenhagen – a new world order
There are 15 comments on this post
It’s good to be an optimist. Positive thinking must prevail. Football in the western world and british soccer is a prime example, has been destroyed by money.
South Africa deserved and hosted a great world cup. There were a few problems with the actual ball itself and some of the referee’s but overall we can’t fault the country in any way. The football governing body is to blame for the ball’s lightness and referee’s poor calls, one of which helped see our country eliminated.
I look forward to another world cup being hosted by an African nation but South Africa had to be first due to the all too recent banning of modern segregation.
adzmundo The Venus Project,ZM & CND
Whether you like football of not, I think the World Cup lifted peoples spirits. It also was a great leveler. Pouting Frenchmen took an early bath, and ‘oh so tired’ Englishmen were found wanting. But it delivered the best all possible outcomes – a disciplined, well coached team that thrilled us with their talent and their energy triumphed over an aggressive bunch of Dutchmen whose performance and lack of sportsmanship was a very poor advertisement for the land of plastic cheese.
FIFA’s World Cup delivered a much needed tonic to a world exhausted by the machinations of dumbass politicians and crackpot clerics. Perhaps we need to have a World Cup every two years just to keep our chins up?
Lovely post, akamrburns. Thanks. Your namesake Robbie would have approved, I’m sure.
Meg, thank you…actually the name derives not from the land of my forefathers, but from Charles Montgomery Burns the well known antagonist in the Simpsons!
I was christened ‘Mr Burns’ by my very disrespectful daughters because of my dated sense of humour, my inability to remember names and (so I’m told) a strong physical resemblance, which according to my mirror this morning, is totally untrue!
Poor final but at least the best team in the tournament ended up with the cup/
It’s too late for our ‘golden generation’ to get the skills of the Spanish but perhaps small boys and girls watchig will realise there is more to football than provided by over-paid English players.
But the best thing was the fact that South Africa showed all the naysayers that the decision to take the tournament there was 100 per cent right.
What that country has achieved in less than 20 years is miraculous. Of course there are problems – but we’ve got problems and we’ve not suffered what they did.
We must never forget that coming out of apartheid without civil war was incredible.
I have just been swimming along side ITV’s Tony Morris and I was Starstruck.
He is a good swimmer and great looking guy.
I would rather watch swimming than football, but was not surprised to see that Octopussy got it right despite his 2 failures.
This tentacled Matador in disguise, used his twists and turns to point the supreme finger of prophecy on his own kind .His swirls resembled a Bolero, his tentacles occassionally went to the top of his rather bullish head ,
Yes. he will be swimming in the med now he is manufactured a win for his own passionate kind.
Pete and Dud was an excellent watch last night .. the supreme talent of those guys .. risk takers.. and well done wossy.
A disappointing match, resulting in worthy winners. The sad part part was that this Dutch team was much better than the final game would suggest – we might have been offered something as skillful and entertaining as the 3rd/4th playoff (when, of course, the two teams had little to “lose”). Another example of “motivation” killing the thing it was supposed to encourage?
Please return to Haiti Jon, you were in full flow.
Haitians living through hell as other networks are reporting, Democracy Now has major stories in this regards on their site, they are in a desperate situation with Hurricane season approaching, millions of women and children living in tents, how are they going to cope……….please bring it the attention of the generous British public…….
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/12/displaced_haitians_we_cant_continue_in
Haiti is actually now worse off than ever – but thats not news . there is also a major rape problem there – which says a lot for Humans ??. C4 does a lot on UK politics – which is natural – and a lot on the tragedies of the recnt shootings etc – but is it only ” breaking news ” that is news ??
All’s well that ends well. I accept all the praises heaped on Soth Africa’s, skill and ability to organise World Cup 2010.
All the commentrators, seemed to be taken back by the attitude of S. Africans. Will this do anything to build the bridge between two races.
Other question. Is it morally and ethically acceptable to spend billions on building the stadiums? Or these monies could have been well spent for their economic development.
Then, there is attitude of FIFA to dictate terms to SA as to the location of stadium.
Can they bully Britain and tell us where to build the stadiums. Guess not.
Having said and done all this, surely the praise should go to the people of SA.
I think u have been taken in by the hype of this world cup- like so many . i like soccer – used to like it more. .But this WC has beniffieted the rich more than the poor of SA . What differnce will all this glitz show make to ordinary Black SA s – very little . It was ok while it lasted – helped relieve them from waht many of them have to live thro – but now it is over – and iyts back to reality for them ‘. Extract from another report ” I was reminded of this watching a documentary by the South African director Craig Tanner, Fahrenheit 2010. His film is not opposed to the World Cup, but reveals how ordinary South Africans, whose game is football, have been shoved aside, dispossessed and further impoverished so that a giant TV façade can be erected in their country.”. I undesatnd that the closing cermony was good – good glitz . Now the show is over . FIFA are a lot richer – but would u like to live in Soweto or any other Black township ??. It would IMO b a good idea to back to SA in 4 -6 months time and see what differnce all this hype has made to Black South Africa
What about the spirit of sportsmanship though? Seeing how Dutch coach angrily removed the silver medal from his neck or how the Dutch players refused to shake hands with the Spanish players clashes with one of the principle ideas in sports, i.e., the idea of loosing with dignity…
How to be wrong!!! I thought S.Africa was a wrong and dangerous place for the cup.beautiful as the country is.They handled it brilliantly and with great credit to their country.Each team i fancied lost!!! Good job it wasn’t politics.In the end the best team and cleanest footballers won .I could even consider going back to watching the game,though i am sure that the opening of our season will soon deter me
Are we the only people who went from hating the sound of the vuvuzuelas to loving it?
What it did for the S African people was give them an enormous vote of confidence. They were happy and proud of the achievement of holding the event so successfully and proving people like Adrian wrong in their predictions. Thanks, Adrian, for being generous enough to admit this! And thanks very much to Jon for his optimism and caring attitudes.
[...] Our sports reporter Keme Nzerem has been back to South Africa, to find out if it has delivered: [...]