It's not often the US finds itself on the losing side of anyone's predictions (karma encounters notwithstanding). But, uh, yeah, we beat Spain last night, much to my and many others' surprise (yes, Colin, with the exception of you, who of course were sure the US would eek out a victory.)
Though I am surprised about the American win, I have to say it's likely we'll only be seeing more of the same in the years to come. It's not only because the US hate being bad at things (which we do, sport not the least) but it's also because we are veritably a nation of athletes.
This guy agrees.
Unlike many countries which have national sports for which they are renowned (and often limited to -- say Pakistani cricket or Italian soccer), the US has gradually moved out of the realm of exclusive American sport to colonizing other countries' (sport). The secret? Crosstraining. What I've noticed about South Africa is that much like social and economic segregation persists into the 21st century, there is not a lot of sporting crossover in high school and varsity-aged players. Unlike the three-sport athletes I grew up with, by the time many young players arrive in high school, they've already made their choice (or it's been made for them). What this means is that unlike in the States, where one has a wide pool of athletic and versatile players, in other countries this might not be the case. The result is that if we want to get good at soccer, we can, and we will, and we'll make it speedy, because not only is the infrastructure in place we've got a country of up and comers waiting to be tapped.
I mean, if the US is willing to elbow its way into India's niche professional cricket market (see http://www.aplcric.com/ for some premium details) then why shouldn't we put our national stubborness to the test and win at another imperial sport? We've outsourced enough rugby players to pin us to the map, so with a little more cash thrown at the problem (it's rumored the new APL will be making use of Yankee training sites upon start-up) we might reclaim our imperial history.* We certainly can't let the stinky Euros have all the fun.
*Fact: the first recorded international cricket match was played between the United States and Canada in 1844. Canada won, so we promptly outlawed the sport.
three hundred and fifty something...
For a blog that claims to be a countdown to the FIFA World Cup, I'm not doing a great job at pinning down the details.
By means of a leadup to tonight's showdown between defending European Champions Spain "La Roja" and defending ... USA, I'll first mention another less- known sporting event happening in the Cape Peninsula this week: the O'Neill Cold Water Classic surf extravaganza, tackling the sheltered shores of Kalk Bay today. My friend and I drove down the beachfront road to St. James Municipality to see what all the fuss was about.
To preface this contest: as of Monday severe weather warnings had been flooding the airwaves and net as the Cape battens down for a baddie this week. Apparently no storm surge huge swell warnings could deter the crazies determined to battle for victory off the rocky coast in False Bay. So with high expectations of coastal flooding and gale-force winds, I was surprised to find mildly enlarged swells and moderate waves at the contest spot.
If you've never witnessed a surfing event before, let this be a warning to you: they're not as exciting as they seem in the movies. My friend and I joined a huge group of 20 something messy-haired hoodie-sweatshirt wearing naffs huddled along the railroad tracks at the coast. Not to stereotype, but these guys, if they were old enough, did not show any signs of being employed and if not, didn't appear to be in school. They just fell out of the Muizenberg woodwork to watch the world's best attack the surf (and attempt not to be attacked by the huge masses of kelp popping up along the beach). We joined them to eagerly watch four indistinguishable specs of red in the water pop through and along waves, occasionally taking them in what was admittedly impressive form. But underwhelming, generally, and to a layman's perspective this silly cold sport reckons at most a 6 out of 10.
But to get back to the real sport and purportedly the real reason for this blog: today, the US of A face off against an inarguably better, more experience, and more technically trained team, hoping to repeat what was an impressive victory over beleaguered Egypt only three days ago. I agree with my friend Colin who predicted, "We're going to get smashed."
I reminded him we've got better chances against Spain than Bafana have against Brazil. Rio, here we come!
By means of a leadup to tonight's showdown between defending European Champions Spain "La Roja" and defending ... USA, I'll first mention another less- known sporting event happening in the Cape Peninsula this week: the O'Neill Cold Water Classic surf extravaganza, tackling the sheltered shores of Kalk Bay today. My friend and I drove down the beachfront road to St. James Municipality to see what all the fuss was about.
To preface this contest: as of Monday severe weather warnings had been flooding the airwaves and net as the Cape battens down for a baddie this week. Apparently no storm surge huge swell warnings could deter the crazies determined to battle for victory off the rocky coast in False Bay. So with high expectations of coastal flooding and gale-force winds, I was surprised to find mildly enlarged swells and moderate waves at the contest spot.
If you've never witnessed a surfing event before, let this be a warning to you: they're not as exciting as they seem in the movies. My friend and I joined a huge group of 20 something messy-haired hoodie-sweatshirt wearing naffs huddled along the railroad tracks at the coast. Not to stereotype, but these guys, if they were old enough, did not show any signs of being employed and if not, didn't appear to be in school. They just fell out of the Muizenberg woodwork to watch the world's best attack the surf (and attempt not to be attacked by the huge masses of kelp popping up along the beach). We joined them to eagerly watch four indistinguishable specs of red in the water pop through and along waves, occasionally taking them in what was admittedly impressive form. But underwhelming, generally, and to a layman's perspective this silly cold sport reckons at most a 6 out of 10.
But to get back to the real sport and purportedly the real reason for this blog: today, the US of A face off against an inarguably better, more experience, and more technically trained team, hoping to repeat what was an impressive victory over beleaguered Egypt only three days ago. I agree with my friend Colin who predicted, "We're going to get smashed."
I reminded him we've got better chances against Spain than Bafana have against Brazil. Rio, here we come!
the Mary saga
Monday/Tuesday, June 22/23, 2009: The Mary saga continues. If you don’t know what the Mary saga is, then you’ve never owned a Volkswagen Citi Golf before. Old-school. Mary is my red 1994 Golf, so named because her predecessor was a white Golf named Mary (also Virgin Mary) and my Bloody Mary follows in that tradition. I purchased her from Laubscher, a friend I’ve come to forgive for selling her to me, even after spending the car’s value on repairs and rebuilding the engine. (It seems over the past year some wires were crossed, the result being that water was leaking into the fuel tank, fuel into the oil, and oil straight through the car onto the ground.) Anyway, after many weeks and many rands worth of repairs, I’ve got an old Citi Golf with a patchwork (but running) engine. Yet yesterday I walked outside to find that not only would my car not start, it didn’t have anything else for me besides clicking. It clicked. That was all. After checking doubly that I wasn’t being a silly blonde and doing something obviously wrong, I came to the conclusion that whatever was causing the car to click was not of my doing. Jump starting failed, push starting worked, but there’s really only so many situations in which you can strategically plan around push starting your car every time you need to. Damn. Anyway, I called up my old friend Jesse of Stewart’s Cars (named, he says, for the famous American Jesse Owen – apparently his father was quite progressive) who invited me for tea and biscuits first thing in the morning while he sorted out my car.
When I arrived in Diep River this morning there was puzzlement written all over Jesse’s face. Now this guy has a habit of making me very nervous whenever I approach him with a problem as he has the habit of joking about serious situations to the point that I can rarely decide what’s serious and what’s farce. Well today, he poked and prodded and looked inside while I stood aside with my tea and biscuits. Suddently, a revelation – “Has anyone been poking around in here?” he asks. “No,” I respond, “not that I know of.” Suspicion is written all over his face.
“Come here,” he yells. (He always makes me look at his operations, like a surgeon determined to gross out all and sundry witnesses to his miracle work. “This here plug was undone. Now, I reckon someone has tried to disable the sparks in order to hijack your car.”*
The truth won out! Someone’s violated my poor Mary!
Luckily the problem was nothing a little super glue and duct tape wouldn’t put right, so off I sail into the sunset to face another rainy Cape Town winter day.
* Jesse doesn’t speak with a Southern accent in real life but it makes me feel more at ease to attribute one to him in writing.
to Bloem we go!
Thursday, June 18, 2009: Confederation Cup update! I’ve scoped the best places to catch midday football in Cape Town, and depending on how awkward you feel about drinking by yourself (gulp), there are various PG establishments that serve hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches (Deano’s, Dean Street, they don’t think it’s weird if you show up two days in a row!) Apparently it’s considered poor form to be a lone sports fan, especially an American one, well, a blonde female at least, and I get a few stares. Hmm. Not concerned. In football news a phenomenal game played between Brazil and Egypt, Brazil pulling it out 4-3 at the end with a last minute penalty for handballing in the box. (Anyone who played with us during our summer soccer tournament in 2006 will remember a similar incident in our game against the dodgy Europeans who smoked at half time and wore colored shirts and designer shoes to play.) Later that night New Zealand played Iraq and nobody cared. That night the US loses a cracker against Italy, looks like the Cup might be out of our hands, and the much anticipated (and joked about) Iraq – US final may never come to pass.
Tickets still not available to Saturday’s South Africa v. Spain final round match in Bloemfontein. Anxiety sets in.
Friday, June 19, 2009: Bingo! Have managed to corner a guy who knows a guy who has Hyundai comp tickets to tomorrow’s match. Headed to town to meet him at the top of a parking garage and exchange. (Sounds much dodgier than it actually was.) In fact the garage was the location of a commercial shoot for Hyundai, so I got a first-hand glimpse at the behind the scenes action. Well, all I really put together was that there’s a guy in charge of making puddles, and he has to do it just so, and the car has to drive really fast over the puddle just so, making sure not to get water or dirt on the visible underbelly, and this has to happen 8 consecutive (and identical times) before someone in the audience who looks important with an earpiece and a cell phone cries out, “We got it!” Right. Anyway, long story short, tickets are in hand and they’re pretty.
Now we just have to sort out tickets for the four others who are planning to carpool with us. Deadline is 4pm.
It’s 4:30pm and no tickets are available. Grumpiness sets in.
It’s 5:30pm and no tickets are available. Time to drink.
Drinking. It’s 11pm, time for bed. WAIT! A text… tickets are up, bought, we’re off on a 1000 kilometer trip to Bloem for the game tomorrow. Leaving in T-minus 5 hours…
Saturday, June 20, 2009: Pipe dreams do come true! It’s 1004 kilometers (approx. 600 miles) to Bloemfontein, in the Free State. We set off in my friend Gavin’s bakkie that seats two in the front, two in the back, and however many people you want in the double cab. We realize this trip is going to be an epic journey and set up a makeshift bedroom in the back.
The game plan is simple: leave Cape Town in order to make the 10 hour trip in time to watch the first game in the Springboks/Lions test at 3 – this tour only comes around once every 12 years so we reckon it’s important to make it. Then potter around Bloem, get into the spirit of things (if you know what I mean) and head to the stadium early enough to avoid the manic rush. Well we all know the best laid plans are the first to go, and sure enough, after three leisurely Wimpy stops we realize there’s no chance of us making it all the way to Bloem for the rugby. New plan. Find a dorpie on the way that looks like they have a bar and a TV (hopefully in the same place).
That dorpie is Trompsburg. 80 kilometers south of Bloem this tiny town a kilometer off the highway looks like nothing has changed for 50 years. After passing one hotel boasting a “ladies bar” and a liquor store with benches but no TV we stumble across the “Manor House,” a tiny hotel and eatery with not one, but two TV’s and a well-stocked liquor cabinet. Score!
The best part about Trompsburg? They, like many of the small towns up the N1 to Bloem and eventually Joburg, announce their presence by writing the name of their town on the nearest hill in block lettering formed by white rocks. “Springfontein.” “Trompsburg.” “Richmond, est. 1843, www.richmond.co.za.”
One happy American:
Petrol to Bloem, per person: R300
Wimpy and Spur burger prices, average, per person: R50
Cost of tickets: R200
Beers: R15
20 hours in the car with people that are luckily still your friends, watching Fernando Torres play football in real life, real time, a chance to hear 36,000 people singing an old freedom song simultaneously, and making the most of living in the 2010 host nation: R565
AND despite the 2-0 loss to Spain Bafana has claimed a spot in the semis, thanks to a 1-1 draw between formidable opponents Iraq and New Zealand.
Sunday, June 21, 2009: Sunday started at 12am Saturday and ended, well, never. Apparently no one sleeps in Bloem, they just party hardy through the night, drinking their way through pub after pub without regard for the morning (or the 10 hour drive facing them on the way back.) Again, that bed in the back of Gav’s bakkie comes in very handy.
I’ll spare you the details of the very long, very hungover, very grumpy return trip to say that we made it back in time for the second half of both the US/Egypt and Brazil/Italy games, two unexpected smackdowns that left favorites Italy and Egypt out of the semis. There had to be some money lost on those games.
Confederation Cup begins!
Sunday, June 14, 2009: Round one of the Confederation Cup. Bafana opens the game against Iraq. A 0-0 draw, altogether messy play and a disappointing start to the World Cup prelude. FIFA president Joseph Blatter gives a rousing “thank you, Africa” speech before he craps on the local organizers for failing to fill the stadium for the opener. That night Spain crushes New Zealand 5-0. Looks like Group A is rising to no challenge. Jacob Zuma speaks about something (well, presumably he intended his speech to have meaning, but with JZ one can never really get the point).
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have a lovely lunch prepared for us at De Grendel wine farm in the Paarl winelands. Holiday’s the best!
Monday, June 15, 2009: Five of our Santos girls have been selected to train with Banyana Banyana for the SA national squad. I realize my appointed arch-nemesis is on the list and has been training with the Bananas for two years already. Gulp.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009: Further research into our Banyana squad reveals this dark history:http://outsports.com/jocktalkblog/2009/02/10/feb-11th-trial-set-for-accused-murderers-of-lesbian-soccer-player/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudy_Simelane
Wednesday, June 19, 2009: I’m on holiday with nothing to do! You’ll notice this blog is nothing to do with marathon training, which is not to say that’s an unimportant component of my life right now so instead of talking about soccer I’m going to talk about this very Capetonian habit of running up mountains. Now, in America, where people are fat and lazy, mountains are things to be looked at more than scaled. Not so here – here they don’t hike, they don’t climb, they run. Well you can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take America out of the girl. After many grumblings I figure pain now is, well, equally bad to pain later, but what the hell, it’s not as if I have anything else to do. Run up, run down, run up again, picture attached.
365 days and counting...
It's officially one year to the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. That means it's time to get my ass in gear and actually write. This is one week in one post.
Thursday, June 11, 2009: 365 days until the FIFA World Cup, officially the biggest sporting event ever to reach South Africa’s shores and thefirst time any nation in Africa has had the opportunity to host. This blog will track the social, political and economic changes and controversies surrounding the preparation for and the lead-up to 2010.
Today in the streets of Cape Town cannons and fireworks and speeches by both Mayor Helen Zille and President Jacob Zuma kick off the one year countdown to the Cup. Green Point Stadium,
Cape Town’s definitive nod to the FIFA coordinators and the biggest construction happening in town, gleams in the background, its glass roofing nearing completion, its undulant silhouette jarring with the square outline of Table Mountain.
Friday, June 12, 2009: Almost time for Confederation Cup kick-off. The big games start on Sunday, and last minute online ticket sales heat up. Here’s hoping FIFA doesn’t screw the pooch on ticket sales. We’ve got big plans to head to Bloem or Pretoria for the South Africa/Spain or Brazil/Italy matches, respectively. Group A (South Africa, Spain, New Zealand, and Iraq) is looking conspicuously weaker than B (USA, Brazil, Italy, Egypt). The organizers probably felt obligated to give the host nation at least a modicum of a chance of making the semis. Go Bafana!
http://www.sport24.co.za/Content/Soccer/ConfedCup/585/462d81e4fd534dacb2e42e7c85743cef//Confederations_Cup_fixtures
Saturday, June 13, 2009: My soccer club, FC Santos, is invited to participate in a 365 celebratory indoor tournament at the old Good Hope Center (formerly the Civic Center) in downtown Cape Town. Each of the 8 clubs invited to join is to bring 8 players who will be mixed, matched and distributed onto 8 teams, each representing one of the 8 invited nations of the Confederation Cup. I played for Spain with my captain and a couple of girls from my team. We tried stacking only for the organizers to foil our plot and reorganize the teams. I watched Helen Zille play keeper in the 4 v. 4 Province v. City women’s indoor game. She’s not bad but sheeeez, does she keep a tight ship!
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