Soccer Passion

For starters, I would like to say that I am just loving this atmosphere. It has become fashionable to be patriotic, and although as a country we still perhaps (and sometimes rightly so) belittle our national football side these past two weeks have shown patriotism at its best. I watched the Bafana game on Wednesday in the company of 2000 people, probably 90% of them white, and witnessed scenes that are rarely seen in this country, with respect to the rugby fraternity. Huge amounts of patriotism, a sea of yellow, face paint, vuvuzelas, flags and anything else people could manufacture in our rainbow flag colours. Then on Friday, a sea of white and red as the passionate English descended onto the fair Cape, with gusto. Soccer has many failings, I know of a few schools in England that don’t allow soccer because their boys begin to act differently when they play it and their values go out the window so to speak, but what it really does do, is bring out huge passion and support. So all in all, how great it has been to have the World in South Africa. Let’s hope this tournament acts as a catalyst for soccer excellence in South Africa.