Jumat, 11 Juni 2010
South Africa vs. Mexico
So the games are here at last. Six years after South Africa won the right to host the World Cup and four years after Italy lifted the trophy in Berlin, the opening game of the 2010 World Cup — South Africa vs. Mexico at Johannesburg’s Soccer City – has arrived.
It is not hyperbole to call it the biggest sporting event ever held on African soil. (The biggest, that is, until the final 30 days from now.) South Africa, once an international sports pariah because of its apartheid system, has spent billions to prepare for the show. Its team is desperately hoping to avoid the ignominy of becoming the first host nation to fail to advance out of the first round. But for the country, and for Africa itself, the tournament is about much, much more.
“This World Cup is not only about football,” the former South African captain Lucas Radebe said recently. “It’s about Africa reinventing itself.”
Radebe may be right, but for today at least the World Cup is finally about the games.
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