Pilot

It has been for some time that I have waiting to start my own blog concerning sport from my own perspective. The holidays have just begun and with an abundance of spare time there is no better time for me to begin. To start it off I thought where better to begin than with South Africa’s own national football team, for me an investment that is finally paying off, in sporting terms of course.

I have for several years now been supporting Bafana, however only with disappointment. The loss to Ghana in 2005 was my breaking point. The loss on home soil meant that we failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup, and this devastated me greatly. I had followed football since 2002 where South Africa made an impressive showing at the world cup only to be kicked out on goal difference while Paraguay progressed. From then on my taste for South African football grew, but like I said that Ghana game was my breaking point. With the loss came South African football hitting a slump that would prove to take a long time to let go of. This seemed a hard pill to swallow at the time as we had recently been awarded rights to host the 2010 world cup.

I perhaps should have seen the signs coming if I had observed my history closer. Bafana had experienced decreasing fortunes in the AFCON(African cup of nations). After their momentous win in 96 it followed with a runner up spot to Nigeria in 1998 and we fell a further position back in 2000 when we came third. It didn’t stop there, two years later we only reached the quarter finals and then for the following three competitions we couldn’t even manage to pass the first round. We hit absolute rock bottom when we didn’t qualify for Angola in 2010 and while I now believe it may be a blessing in disguise for the team, it is still a horrible idea to think that we did not qualify for Africa’s continental showpiece.

With the prospect of bombing out in the confederations cup, coach Santana came in with mission impossible which was ‘try to improve Bafanas image’ or in other words show they are not chumps. This was made more interesting when Bafana was placed in a group considered dead easy

New Zealand and Iraq were the two that would contest with South Africa for the second spot in group A, while Spain was sure to come first in the group. The first game for South Africa against Iraq was shocking. While we did dominate the chances, the finishing was woeful and it was a performance to forget. The second game against New Zealand showed contrasting events. We completely dominated the all whites and by some miracle only managed to put two of our chances in the back of the net, something I believed we may rue come the final games but that was not the case as Iraq showed their attack was as poor as their game plan and ended up drawing 0-0. South Africa on the other hand showed another impressive performance against Spain in front of a passionate Bloemfontein crowd but in the end still lost going down 2-0.

We went on to face Brazil in the semi finals a few days later and this was when my perspective of Bafana changed and I realized that there was going to be changes in South Africa’s performance from here onwards. While we may have gone down one nothing to a brilliant but devastating Daniel Alves goal in the final minutes, Bafana proved that they are worthy of sharing a field with any of footballs elite. Possession and shots on goal statistics were close to equal. Defense and attack were both impressive and it opened my eyes to a new era for South African football.

How did it happen? Perhaps it was Santana but there are many other propositions. Maybe they finally learned to play as a team or maybe they realized that the support for them was worthy of a team with a positive attitude. Whatever it was it gained respect not only from South Africans but also from football followers worldwide and who knows, if we find a clinical finisher we may be able to emulate Korea or Japan as they performed exceptionally when they co hosted the world cup in 2002.

Whatever happens I will continue to support South African football. Tomorrow is the third place playoff and while some argue that it’s a needless game I look forward to seeing South Africa close off their campaign with a positive performance. Players like Pienaar, Booth, Tshabalala and Khune have really stood out for me in this tournament and who knows, maybe tomorrow they will celebrate a historical win. But even if they do go down I will know that they did their best and that’s all I can ask for from them.

The Confederations cup has done a good duty to me by sparking a light of anticipation in my soul for the world cup in under 12 months and my own spare time has been taken up by viewing websites documenting the impressive foundations being set for what in my opinion is to be a very successful world cup. One that has to be mentioned is http://db5.skyscrapercity.com. It’s a forum that follows a number of architectural buildings in the making and if you follow the links you will find a number of threads dedicated to South Africas own stadiums in construction for 2010. The pictures are incredible and you have to check them out. Follow the links to ‘world forums’ and then to ‘stadium and sports arenas’. There are some guys on there posting their own photos of the remarkable stadia and is definitely worth a quick scan.

That’s all for today. Just a reminder to watch Bafana against Spain tomorrow at half four from Royal Bafokeng and then at 8:30 is the final between Brazil and US, that’s from Ellis Park. Enjoy the football feast.

Justin