SA Rocks

The video below was originally distributed via email in powerpoint format (or at least that’s how I received it first).

I received this email about 10 times in the space of 3 days. Impressive by any viral email standards I think. If you haven’t seen the video yet, watch it. It’s not half bad and definitely sums up the way forward fairly well for this world cup.

Now, here’s the story behind the email as told by HomeComingRevolution:

After Bafana Bafana’s exit at the first round of the 2010 Soccer World Cup and the support that they had received from South African citizens, Rebecca Sehloho wrote a poem. The poem captured the importance of being fantastic hosts which goes beyond the soccer and
deeper into what the tournament is about.

Rebecca and her colleague Anthony Prangley harmonised their proudly South African voices with memorable images to inspire the nation to look at all the positive that has resulted from the World Cup. They saw the need to remind South Africans that it does not matter if Bafana Bafana didn’t win. It’s much bigger than that – South Africa has won!

Martine Schaffer, Managing Director of Homecoming Revolution said: “Anthony sent it to us on the morning after Bafana Bafana were eliminated. We realised the potential of this viral message and the stronger uniting message that it had for South Africans. A few emails were sent out and within the space of an hour, we were receiving it back into our inbox. The creators had no idea of how quickly this message would spread and we are thrilled that they chose to associate it with the Homecoming Revolution. As a nation we are seeing a growth in our identity with our soccer team, our country and our amazing achievements in hosting this World Cup. This is also stirring up heart-sore emotions amongst our South African Diaspora. We have so much to celebrate and this succinct, emotional, visual message sums
up how we are feeling. Proud.”

Let’s keep it going. The World Cup is about being friendly hosts and fantastic fans of all the teams. Each of us can do something. This is our chance.

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Yes, Bafana Bafana is out of the Fifa 2010 World Cup. Yes we are the only host nation in the history of the World Cup to not make it through to the 2nd round of the tournament but it just isn’t that simple now is it? Bafana blew out of the tournament bit did not crash and burn as they did this, they climbed the ranks of football in a rising fireball.

My friend Prudence sums it up perfectly:

Yes, let’s just run through that again shall we; Bafana did not qualify for this World Cup and competed on the basis that we were the hosts. We are ranked 83rd in the World right now. We drew with Mexico, ranked 17th. We lost to Uruguay who are ranked 16th and we beat, yes that is correct, we beat the French who are World Cup winners and currently ranked 9th in the world.

I am extremely proud of Bafana Bafana and must say that they played world class football yesterday against the French. The deserved a win and proved that they can compete with the best in the world and come out on top. I also believe that Frances internal politics cannot be an excuse for the French. They are a world class team with world class players and should be able to rise above their own rubbish and win. Their fans must be bitterly dissapointed and they owe their fans an apology.

I’ll still be pulling for the African teams along the way and hope that a few of them manage to make it through and give us Africans something to cheer for.

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Great little video for a bit of fun:

[via MatVisser]

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Bafana Bafana might have lost last night to Uruguay in a 3 – 0 thrashing (let’s be realistic about it).

Here are some of my thoughts on the game:

Bafana never really turned up on the night. They were slow, they never moved forward and they refuse to use their wide-open wings to push the midfield forward. But hey, that’s just my thoughts. We didn’t deserve to win that game and we made Uruguay look good.

The referee – is, well, a referee and this is soccer, this is the beautiful game and there is always going to be a controversy for one team or another. This time it happens to be our team and it sucks. Most of all it sucks for our incredible goalkeeper, Itumeleng Khune who in no way deserves the punishment he is going through. Khune played out of his boots against Mexico and Uruguay and really got a raw deal. However, let me say this as clearly as possible; The referee had nothing to do with South Africa losing to Uruguay. You need to score goals to win a soccer match and you can’t score goals from your own half for 90 minutes. We lost because we didn’t play well.

Uruguay played South Africa in to a corner. They were driven, they pushed forward, they made space (which SA gave them) and they took shots on goal. They also scored the first goal which is imperative for a mental advantage. South Africa’s lack of international experience on a major scale showed here, we were a goal down and we couldn’t get our heads out of that framework. We beat ourselves after that first goal.

Plus, Forlan is brilliant. Enough said there.

But let me follow all of this criticism up with the following:

Bafana Bafana make me proud. I cannot even begin to fathom the weight that those players feel on their shoulders; host nation, one of the lowest ranked teams in the World Cup this year, they have records to maintain (such as trying not to be the first host nation not to make it past the first stage of a World Cup) and they have their pride above all. I do not envy their position. When they win they are our heroes and when they lose fans leave the stadium early.

ASIDE – the fans at Loftus who left the stadium early; I am hoping they left to avoid traffic and if Bafana were winning they would have left anyways at that time (a bit of a dream, but still). I was honestly insulted by their lack of respect for a team that is playing their hearts out for the nation. Disgusting.

Now on to South Africa and how we can still win. It’s simple: Be great hosts, don’t be bitter losers and make this World Cup one to remember for every single individual who has traveled to our beautiful nation.

We have still gained so much by hosting the Fifa World Cup 2010. Whether or not Bafana goes through to the next round they have done us proud by simply competing at a level that no one had previously even expected. We drew to Mexico who sit at #17 on the FIFA world rankings. Bafana sit at 83rd on the rankings, so let’s be realistic (yes this is me being realistic) about the outcomes of this World Cup for Bafana; we were probably never going to win it. Ever. Participating at the top level of global football is an achievement that we were only granted as the hosts of this World Cup. Our boys are doing us proud and we should hold our heads high.

There is more football to be played. There are more games to be watched and there many other African nations and underdogs that we can put our weight behind. I’m personally routing for the Ivory Coast to pull in some magic and get through to the next round and I’m hoping that Cameroon can pull together and show the world their class.

Bring on the next 20 or so days left of the biggest sporting event in the world. It’s going to be a blast that we will probably never in our lifetimes see again in South Africa. So let’s make it worth our while and enjoy it.

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What an absolutely incredible day to be proudly South African. The streets have been lined with people, proud people, loud people and people who want to feel the vibe.

Today, I am proud to be part of this country!

Here are many photos and a video or two showing what went on around the country!

Thanks go out to all the people who tweeted and linked to photos!

Jwaneezborg
Mike Stopforth
Fred Roed
Peter du Toit
mikesharman
AmandaSevasti
palesa08
deanoelsch
katiepossum
Sproutsmom
AMyburgh
youngBLOOD

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Last night was the first time I’ve been inside Soccer City. It was my first time driving in a crowd of 75000 people to a stadium to watch 11 men kick a ball around on a grass pitch. I can’t express sufficiently how unbelievably ecstatic I am that I forced myself to mission through the nearly 2 hours of traffic to get there. Johannesburg is ready for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, South Africans are ready and let me tell you so is Soccer City.

The drive to Soccer City in Soweto may have been epic in proportion but there was not a single minute that I didn’t have a smile on my face. People all around me where hooting in beat with other cars, blowing vuvuzelas, whistles and singing. This is in the street, on the highway, I’m not in the stadium yet.

I’m going to try and be as frank as I can about my experiences and preconceived perceptions going in to the game. I was incredibly nervous going in to the experience that I was over-hyping everything. That I would be looked at funny and frowned upon because I didn’t know enough about the team and players, because I was wearing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing or because I was white. I was wrong, on all accounts.

We parked (that’s an entirely different story that includes my car being parked in by over 20 other cars!) and walked from the Nasrec Expo Center. We then joined masses of people in the walk down Nasrec Road. We were in the middle of the Shosholoza crew it seemed. They sang and sang and sang until we arrived at the stadium itself.

The Vuvuzelas are epic, unrelenting and extreme energy creators. The crowd too was relentless and exuberant. The didn’t stop for a single second, whether we were down, up or on a par with Columbia there was a song going, a Mexican wave flowing or tune blowing from a Vuvuzela.

With that said though, I must admit that I found the crowd to be extremely disinterested in the actual game being played. They watched and waited for the big moments, the free-kicks, the goals and penalties but not for the moments of flair and brilliance that one needs to pay attention to notice. There weren’t many occasions when good play was applauded, with thanks to the Vuvuzelas whether their were applause or not, you wouldn’t have heard them. So that’s my only criticism I think; I wish the crowd would have paid more attention to the game.

But all in all I was incredibly proud to be a part of that crowd, to be a part of this nation and to call myself South African. If ever there was doubt about whether we were ready for the World Cup, let me put many concerns to bed. After what I saw last night, we are ready and waiting. Bring it on and welcome to Africa.

Oh – yes, Bafana Bafana won in a relatively controversial game of 3 penalties (4 if you include the first one being taken twice). What a great way to open Soccer City to international Football, a victory much needed!

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In spite of a dismal looking record in the Confederation Cup (One win in the whole tournament), Bafana Bafana under the leadership of Joel Santana proved that they have what it takes to stand up to the top football nations in the world and give them stick.

And stick is exactly what Spain and Brazil received (Spain twice).

Sadly Bafana was not rewarded with a victory in the final stages of the tournament and managed to finish 4th in the tournament behind Brazil, USA and Spain.

However I am still proud to say that it took 3 miracle goals to beat bafana in the 3rd/4th play-off and one of the best freekicks I’ve seen by Brazil to take us out of the semi-final.

Mphela played a magical game in the 3rd/4th play-off and put through one of the best freekicks under pressure in the final movement of a football match to take the game in to extra time (which we then lost).

Bafana has a good platform to start working from for the 2010 world cup coming our way next year. We are in a great position to look at how we played against 2 of the top 5 teams in the world of football. Joel Santana deserved a win, but let’s be honest he’s finally made South Africa look like a team, play like a team and become supported like a national team by a nation.

Well done to them all.

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The semi-final of the Confederation’s Cup 2009 was an absolutely thrilling game. Fifa’s 5th best team in the world required on the best pressure free kicks I’ve seen to beat South Africa, Fifa ranking of 77 at the time (now moved up 5 places to 72.

The fact remains that Bafana played a game like none they have played in many years. They looked like a top ten team and dare I say deserved to win. The truth is that they didn’t, and that’s OK with me because sometimes one needs to lose to learn. But the match that the Bafana squad played last night pulled a nation together and proved that we are on the right track.

To the coach, Joel Santana, my congratulations go out. He told everyone to judge him on the Confed Cup, well done sir, well done.

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It’s been a relatively good weekend for South African sports.

Bafana Bafana played great football on Saturday but sadly lost to Spain 2-0. In spite of the final score I felt that the lads played one helluva game and improved their football tenfold from their first performance in the Confederations Cup.

Now, lets just hope that Bafana can hold a MASSIVE upset and defeat Brazil in the semi-final. Surprisingly Egypt did not make it through to the semi’s. I think after their historic victory over World Champions Italy, they deserved to pip the USA and go through. Alas it was not to be.

And the Bokke pulled off a lucky victory against the British and Irish Lions on Saturday. I say lucky because we technically received a thumping in the second half of the match. A great performance in the first half put us up by a fair amount. The Beast had a ripper of a game and destroyed the scrums for the Lions. When he was replaced. Things went bad.

I am impressed with Mr Peter de Villiers and his response. He took blame for making substitutions too early in the game. This most definitely put us in a tricky slot. We handled it well and luckily came away with a win.

Finally, yes in case you had forgotten, we still lost the T20 semi-final. Pakistan however, ended up winning the tournament. Congratulations to them!

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It appears that the new Bafana Bafana football jersey has been unveiled.

The photo’s appeared on Flickr today.

And here they are:

It appears that credit for the photos go to Shine2010

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