Farewell to South Africa

Some reflections after the end of the big show:

South Africa was criminally safe -Siting a World Cup in winter in a land known for its crime and huge traveling distances was a mistake, so in 2014 we can relax in the knowledge that.....

Anyway, crime fears in the Rainbow Nation were over-egged and only on a few occasions, at night near Ellis Park, at the wrong end of Long Street in Cape Town and wandering where I should not have been in Pretoria, did I feel robbery was a distinct possibility. The image of a nation of Ali Babas preying on tourists was absurd, and as long as you were not stupid forever you were fine.

South Africa scored in placing cops on every street corner near the stadia, and whilst there were some of the most sluggish peelers I've ever seen (bad memories of statuesque CRS at France '98 flooded back), their visual presence did the job .

Transport travails - Flying to South Africa cost an arm and a leg but internal flights were not outrageously priced as long as you knew about the budget airlines. The road network is Africa's best but was inadequate for the volume of traffic at the tournament. I will never forget the joke of a one-lane highway in and out of Rustenburg and the two and a half hour wait to exit the parking lot at the Royal Bafokeng stadium (cap. 38,000). FIFA should return to the system of placing groups in two neighbouring cities. Why did England fans have to jet between Rustenburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth?

On the plus side the beer was cheap and the tickets easily obtainable at face value, confounding the touts: There was a shortfall of visitors after all. Sadly they were still way out of the range of most local pockets.

MaFIFA looked like a bully - The saddest sight I saw was not the vast shanty town in the Gauteng province we drove past every day but a street vendor in Soweto, about a mile from Soccer City, unable to sell us the food she had cooked because a policeman had told her she did not have a FIFA licence to trade that 'close' to the ground. FIFA negotiated to pay no tax on its earnings in South Africa by the way, which included $2 billion in TV rights alone.

We were reminded of our 'brand loyalty' more than ever by the placing of the word 'FIFA' after every TV replay, on substitutes' bibs and on banners all around the stadia. No, we love the World Cup, not the organisers.

On the subject of food and drink, if we must have exclusive products in the stadia, can we please have a beer other than that gnats' piss Crudweiser? Surely Carlsberg, Heineken or Stella can stump up the cash. I just can't take another mouthful of tasteless ale at a World Cup anymore!

The official merchandise in the FIFA shops and elsewhere cost up to 50% more in South Africa than Britain; explain please! The fascistic clampdown on merchandising reduced entrepreneurial street traders to hawking flags, scarves and assorted colourful hats in secluded corners as close to the stadium as they dared (i.e. far away). Merchandise of South African club teams was also conspicuous by its absence, drowned by the FIFA flood. We've been here before, alas.

Stadia - A definite plus, with the exception of rubbish Rustenburg. Green Point in Cape Town and the Moses Mabhida in Durban were beautiful, Ellis Park and Loftus Versfeld reeked of (rugby) history and Soccer City, despite lying in a dustbowl surrounded by slag-heaps with poor transport links, was as stunning as the new Wembley. Whether they will ever be filled again though...

Football- Nothing special, a soporific first round followed by more exciting games with a few stunning goals, refereeing howlers and rough tackles. An ugly final followed by some bad losing ill-behoving the Dutch, the worst climax since the snore-fest of 1994 and the roughest since 1990, but at least the best team won and penalties did not dominate the knock-out stages.
The Spanish, inferior to their Euro 2008 vintage, rarely dazzled and were the lowest scorers ever to win the World Cup, but their innate class still prevailed and the clinching goal was a skilful affair worthy of a winning strike.
My tournament eleven: Kingson, Maicon, Coentrao, Lugano, Pique, Schweinsteiger, Busquets, Xavi, Sneijder, Muller, Forlan.

Tactics - England's eclipse by a rampant young Germany made 4-4-2 look as dead as a dodo and 4-2-3-1 the new kid on the block. Dual defensive midfielders, exemplified by Bastian Schweinsteiger and Sami Khedira's double-act, is the zeitgeist, replacing the 'one go forward, one stay back' standard. Germany's explosive counter-attacking game took the knock-out stages by storm until Spain's class proved too much for them, but they are still the stars of the tournament in my book. I was green with envy as I watched Arne Friedrich effortlessly bomb up and downfield.

Ball - While many a goalie complained of its feel and defenders its flight, the Jabulani was the same for everyone and veterans like Giovanni Van Bronckhorst and Diego Forlan showed how to spear it with accuracy from afar.

Fans - No violence, and not even one England fan was arrested apart from that moron/folk hero who invaded the dressing room in Cape Town. The World Cup has now become such a carnival that if you don't face-paint and wear a funny costume you are out of place. Fan parks are now entrenched as the most enjoyable place to watch although the Southern Hemisphere winter made them huddled gatherings at times. South Africans swapped many a team loyalty depending on who was playing, making the most of the passing multicoloured show.

Vuvuvuvuvuvs - No, no, no, no, no, no! Chanting, integral to match atmospheres for decades and a mirror of the game itself, was wiped out at a stroke by an invasive din of kids' plastic toys. I never thought I would be wearing earplugs at games....Don't blame the Africans, blame the dimwitted tourists who thought it was funny to carry on blowing and blowing. Indeed.

Local media - South African TV coverage was an odd brew, made up of former England internationals like John Barnes ('80s) and Terry Paine ('60s) with discount British commentators. Radio phone-ins, or those in English at least, as there are ten other official tongues in the Rainbow Nation, betrayed a lack of knowledge of the game, although had some priceless callers like the enraged Afrikaner housewife urging a five-year ban on Luis Suarez for 'acting like a ballerina'.

South Africans -Too diverse to pigeon-hole, but everyone seemed to get into it, and even die-hard rugby men donned Bafana gear for the government-sanctioned 'Football Fridays'. Seeing a bar of (black) South Africans cheer their consolation win over France like they had won the tournament remains a fond memory. Everyone was approachable and whatever your reservations about the tournament going to South Africa in the first place, the locals seemed overjoyed about it. A shame Bafana were nowhere near good enough to exploit that fervour but the people made it a great show off-field.

-Sean O'Conor