2010

Port Elizabeth, or the city which the new government has renamed Nelson Mandela Bay, built a stadium just for the World Cup. It's a beautiful big bowl with a white canopy covering most of the seats. The paint is fresh and the plastic seats are unscratched. But it was half empty when the teams kicked off Saturday for the first match of the Round of 16.

I noticed as I checked Fifa's website that this stadium has the most available tickets of any stadium, I said to my South African friend, Garth. “I'm not surprised. The Eastern Cape is the poorest province in the country. And people are just slow to do anything here. It's just a general lassitude,” he said.

Garth lives just down the road in Jeffrey's Bay, and though he's not so into soccer he said he would enjoy accompanying me to the match.

The row below our seats was empty, so we could rest our legs on the backs of those seats, and to my right there was no one, so I could set my notebook and a bar of chocolate there. I appreciated the relaxed atmosphere that came with a smaller crowd, just as a change of pace. My ears appreciated there being no vuvuzelas nearby; the day before on my drive down to the Eastern Cape they had suddenly lost half their hearing, and I wondered if it didn't have anything to do with the horn blowing they had endured over the past weeks.

The stadium's look was half empty, the sound was mild, and there were fewer people around wearing South Africa's yellow Bafana Bafana jerseys. The country had truly seemed on fire for the World Cup before the home team lost out last week, but the air felt so tempered now. Bafana Bafana being out might also account for the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium being less than full.

On the big screens the night's attendance was announced at 30,597. The stadium has a capacity of 46,082. So, two-thirds full.

I hadn't seen anyone outside the stadium selling tickets. Fifa 's strict ticket regulations probably accounted for some of the lack of attendance too. Tickets can only be legally bought through Fifa-approved providers, they can only be resold through Fifa's website, and they cannot be legally resold at all if the buyer has already printed a hard copy of the ticket. Scalpers do exist outside stadiums, as I'd seen on other nights, but they risk arrest.

Still, there were four blocks of fans down in the lower seats going wild to support their countries on this night. Two blocks wore all red for South Korea and two blocks flew blue flags for Uruguay. Ugh, I had to watch the pink pajamas play again, which I hadn't known when I purchased the tickets months ago. But Garth said he would root for them since they were also from the Southern Hemisphere. I went for the South Koreans of course; many of my English students back in San Diego are from South Korea.South Koreans cover up for their national anthem.Unfortunately, Uruguay went up 2-1 in the second half, and then the physical rain started. The white canopy protected us. Only light mist occasionally reached our upper level seats, but the players got soaked and so did the lower rows of fans. Soon the bottom 15 rows were nearly cleared out and the stadium looked even emptier. Two-thirds full and draining due to the downpour. When the referee blew his whistle at 93 minutes there was only light clapping for the Uruguayan whiners, I mean winners.

I continued to think of reasons for why a World Cup match in soccer crazy South Africa would only be two-thirds packed, and I got another idea when we arrived back at Garth's house. His wife said his father had called while we were gone. She told his father that we had gone to the game, to which the father replied, “They went to East London?” For that was where a rugby match was being played that night. It didn't help to fill seats at a World Cup of soccer match that the people in South Africa who have the most disposable income, the whites, are mostly interested in any sport other than soccer. UPDATE: Port Elizabeth's professional soccer team has been sold and may move, leaving the brand new stadium as a white elephant.

 Tim Howard, best goalkeeper in the USA. Kelly Slater, best surfer in the USA. 

I have attended multiple games in Johannesburg, the supposed epicenter of World Cup 2010, where the flagship stadium, Soccer City, was built and where the final will be played on July 11. But the match between South Africa and France in Bloemfontein on Tuesday had a far better audience than any of the Joburg games. Directly after kickoff, vuvuzelas went quiet. And the crowd began to sing together. The first song was “Thiba ka bona, e bolaea ntja sena.” Or the Sesotho words sounded like that: Stop these killer dogs. I didn't ask if I'd heard correctly. I didn't care, really. I was just so happy to be doing something in the stands other than listen to incessant vuvuzela drone in my ears. And the fun didn't stop there.

We then clapped in unison. Then we stomped as the wave toured the stadium and we stood up and sat down. When a Bafana Bafana player dribbled dangerously close to the French goal vuvuzelas lit up, or when there was a corner kick, or after South Africa scored their first goal, vuvuzelas lit up. But the crowd at Free State Stadium didn't keep their lips locked on their horns, tooting them endlessly and mindlessly as everyone did in the Johannesburg stadiums. It was an incredibly pleasant change. I actually enjoyed hearing the vuvus come up as something exciting was about to happen. And after South Africa scored their first goal the crowd chanted together the name of the scorer, “Khumalo, Bongani.”

I'd always thought Bloemfontein was a dry town in the flat and boring center of the country, but it has the greatest soccer fans. It was right that Bafana Bafana bowed out of the tournament before the best crowd.

The team from North Korea has got to be the most intriguing of the 2010 World Cup. And a look at the roster of the team shows that many of its members play professionally for a soccer club back home called April 25. A date is a curious name for a sports team.

It turns out, however, that this date for this sports team makes a lot of sense, for April 25 is Military Foundation Day in North Korea, and North Korea is the most militarized country in the world, with about 20% of all North Korean men being in the armed forces. Further, the professional soccer team April 25 is not only named after Military Foundation Day but also actually belongs to the Korean People's Army.

I've been keeping a pansy list. It includes players which, when an opponent gets close enough, throw their hands in the air, arch their backs, roll in the grass and then look at the referee with a soap opera face while grasping their shins for dear life. Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo is on the pansy list, and so is Oezil from Germany. France and Ghana have some players on it too, but then last night's game between South Africa and Uruguay made the list obsolete. For Uruguay tops them all. Uruguay wears pink pajamas.

They spent so much time on their knees in the grass, writhing in fake pain, that the referee eventually fell for one of the acting jobs and awarded them a foul which probably ended South Africa's World Cup.

Uruguay was the better team, technically. They were up a goal, and they didn't need to cheat, but they did. A Uruguayan player and the South African goalie were both running at the ball when the goalie slid, the Uruguayan jumped, and the tip of one of the goalie's cleats kissed the tip of one of the Uruguayan player's cleats. Then the Uruguayan, Luis Suarez, twisted himself in the air, spread his arms out wide and looked to the referee begging. The referee kicked out Itumeleng Khune, the South African goalie. Uruguay got a penalty kick and went up 2-0. The stands were shocked. The entire country seemed deflated. The South Africans in the room with me were silent. The television announcer stuttered until he said, “People in the country are likely to lose interest in the World Cup now.”

It wasn't that Bafana Bafana was going to lose the game 2-0; it was that they got ripped off. Soon enough, the stands began emptying. The likelihood that South Africa can now make it to the next round is paper thin.

I hear no more vuvuzelas outside my window. Thanks, Uruguay. I hope you sleep well in your fuzzy wuzzy pansy pants.

Africans were feeling optimistic about the continent's chances of competing with the best of Europe and South America after the opening match saw South Africa tie the higher-ranked Mexico. An African man on the bus that night said to me, “An African team will win the World Cup! We want the trophy to stay in Africa. Even if another team wins we will take it from them when they're getting on the plane.”

But now that each of the six African teams has played its opening game, it is looking like a trophy heist might be a necessary route to keeping the Cup on the continent. Algeria lost, Nigeria lost, Cameroon lost, and Cote d'Ivoire tied. The only African team to win was Ghana, who scored their only goal on a penalty kick.

Enthusiasm around Johannesburg isn't dampened, however. Many are still on a high from South Africa's Siphiwe Tshabalala having scored the first goal of the tournament, indeed the first goal overall in the first World Cup in Africa. Local newspapers are not holding back in labeling him a hero either. His mug is on the television screen every night. I'd bet hospitals are seeing newborns named Siphiwe.

Nevertheless, history presents a tough soccer nut to crack for the African teams. The World Cup has been running since 1930, yet the first sub-Saharan African team to qualify was Zaire (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1974. The farthest an African team has ever gotten in the World Cup is the quarterfinals, which Cameroon made in 1990.

With regard to winning it all, that's a very exclusive club. In 80 years of World Cups only seven different countries have won. Still, the advantage of the home crowd is huge. Ask England, whose only World Cup win was in 1966 on home turf. And ask France, who won for the first time in Paris in 1998. South Africa is far from home for the European and South American powers. South Africa is completely behind every African team. Even visitors, when they watch a game between an African team and a team other than their own, they wholeheartedly cheer for the Africans. This time still for Africa?

At the opening match between South Africa and Mexico I was given free earplugs at the ticket gate. “For the vuvuzelas,” the man said. “Enjoy the match, sir.”

Still three hours before kickoff time the stadium was afloat in the incessant buzz of vuvuzelas. "It's a beautiful noise for the beautiful game,” says a World Cup advertisement. I lived in Lesotho, inside South Africa, from 2003 to 2007, and I often listened on the radio to the matches between professional soccer teams in South Africa. In the background was always the blowing of vuvuzelas. It was a traditional thing to do, I knew. But this horn drone at Soccer City stadium was different. Much of the blowing was coming from people learning to play the horns on the spot; I'd seen them buy the instruments for 150 rand (about $20) from the hawkers just outside the stadium. An Indian man in a yellow Bafana Bafana jersey seated in my row was getting mostly low fart noises out of his at first, but he kept practicing. Once he and his friends had figured it out my ears didn't get a rest for the whole match. My ears rang as I tried to sleep that night. Vuvuzelas in person were much louder than they seemed on the radio.
Over the last few days, at any time of day, from everywhere I've been in Johannesburg, you need to tune your ears for no more than 30 seconds before you hear a vuvuzela sounding off. This is not tradition either. Before the World Cup, vuvuzelas were only heard in stadiums when big soccer matches were being played. Locals know that, and they are getting tired of it. A Johannesburg shopping mall has banned vuvuzelas from being blown indoors, saying they're afraid it is hurting the ears of children. And the local FIFA organizer is actually open to considering restricting them. Anyone who cries that vuvuzelas can't be banned because they're tradition is lying. Vuvuzelas, the way they are being played around the country these days, is anything but tradition. 

Apparently, in a game of soccer, a tie with the Americans is considered a loss to the English. They really can't accept what happened on Saturday. Immediately after the match I overheard an English teenager talking to his friends, “The Americans did nothing! They had like two shots on goal. They did nothing to earn a draw!”

On the drive home I heard a radio interview with an Englishman who was likewise disgusted, blaming the “loss” on the English goalkeeper: “Green is pathetic. My mother could have stopped that goal.”

And the last night I met an Englishman at the hostel here in Johannesburg whose first words to me were, “You alright, yeah?” I said I was, however he meant it. “Where are you from?” I'm from the States. California. “Ah. Our goalie gave you one, yeah?”

Then he took a swig of his quart of Black Label beer and tried to sell me some pins he had made showing the US and England flags and the date of Saturday's match.

 Soccer City stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg, just before the World Cup was opened. I arrived at the stadium about five hours before kickoff time. This was the kickoff of the entire World Cup, the first World Cup in Africa, after all. It was cold, windy and hazy. This was Johannesburg in the winter. The stands were empty, but I met Collins. He is from the north of South Africa, Limpopo, where his first language is Sepedi, almost the same as Sesotho. He was going to work at a food stand during the game. I asked him how much they pay him, but he said it was just volunteer work. He would be working for a wage at Peter Mokaba stadium in Polokwane, where other World Cup matches would be played, but he was told to come down and work the opening match in Johannesburg just for practice.

The food stands were pretty American. They served only Coca-Cola beverages, only Budweiser beer, and the only hot food was hot dogs – except what they called a chili dog, which was a hot dog with bits of hot peppers inside. You can keep Americans off soccer, but you can't keep American businesses from making a buck off it.

I bought a chili dog and asked Collins who was going to win today's game between South Africa and Mexico. "South Africa will win 3-0," he said. "I had a dream last night, and my dreams always come true. I couldn't argue with that. Collins continued, "South Africa will also make it to the quarterfinal, definitely. My dream says that in the end there is Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Argentina who will be with the trophy, but I'm not sure which one. I will keep dreaming."I circled the stadium a few times to get a sense of the place. I heard mostly English and Spanish. And though it was still three hours before kickoff, the South Africans were already blowing their horns, called vuvuzelas, incessantly. When they blew them in the face of Mexicans, the Mexicans only smiled. Everyone was just happy to be at such a momentous event. The South Africans loved the sombreros and ponchos of the Mexicans and asked to take pictures together.

 After hearing what happened at the World Cup tune-up match between Nigeria and North Korea on Sunday, I learned a little about how to avoid getting trampled over the next month.

1. Dress for comfort and speed, not style. Wear closed toe shoes and pants.
2. Resist the temptation to try and get into the stadium first by gathering at the gate just before opening. 
3. Go your own way. If you follow the others, you'll be battling. Better to take a different route if possible, maybe on the outer edge of the pack.

Best of luck to me!