Greg's blog

At the game between Holland and Denmark on June 14 the Danish wore red, but they were far outnumbered by the orange of Holland fans. So I didn't notice that there were 34 young blonde women seated together near the field wearing identical orange dresses. Neither did I notice when they were surrounded by stewards and forcibly removed from the stadium for “ambush marketing.” Apparently, the dresses each bore a tiny logo of the Dutch beer company, Bavaria.

The problem with those dresses was that American beer manufacturer Budweiser had paid FIFA a lot to be the official beer of the 2010 World Cup, and therefore no other beer was allowed to be sold in the stadiums and no other beer label was allowed to be promoted there either.

The 2006 World Cup in Germany had a beer problem, too. Budweiser had paid $40 million to hold exclusive rights at that event, but the Germans refused to drink only a US beer while watching their countrymen play soccer. Eventually, under local pressure, Budweiser allowed German beer company, Bitburger, to sell its brew at stadiums, but only in unmarked cups.

Garth said he would root for Uruguay against South Korea because Uruguay was also from the Southern Hemisphere. Then we watched on television England play Germany. “I'd like to see the Pommies lose,” he said. “Just because they take their football so seriously. I can imagine their faces in the pubs.”

We can't just watch World Cup matches. We've got to root for one team or another. And we come to root for one team for so many different – and often very personal – reasons. I met a Canadian woman named Heather who told me she was riding a bus to the stadium for a match involving Algeria and she didn't know who she was going to pull for in the game. But then a group of Algerians on the bus had decorated themselves beautifully and began singing and they taught some words to others on the bus and got the whole pack of passengers singing with them. Heather was so struck by the passion and joy of the Algerians that she committed to cheering them on for the rest of the World Cup.

Another woman named Christina, who was born and raised in Peru, found herself supporting Denmark in their game against Holland. She did so for her mother's sake, for her mother is from Denmark.

Sometimes it's easier to decide to root against one team instead of for another. “Anyone but Brazil” is now Becky's motto. It's not because they've won so many times before. It's because they flop more than Vlade Divac – more than pink pajamas Uruguay maybe. Becky is a former Peace Corps volunteer, and it seems Americans like her are more turned off by the acting of soccer players than fans from other nations. (US coach Bob Bradley proposes banning the fakers.)  If the US had to lose to anyone, I didn't mind it being Ghana because way back on the second day of the World Cup I had gone to a Fan Fest park in Johannesburg to watch the US game against England, and a Ghanaian guy named Peter accompanied me. He rooted for the US as loudly as I did. I came away with sympathies for Ghana, and I wasn't so irritated when they beat us the other day.

Also in that first week of World Cup matches, I bought a late ticket for an Argentina game exclusively so I could attend with a guy named Leonardo. He was staying at the same hostel as me in Johannesburg, and I'd come to really appreciate his level of interest in the event. He was a 43-year old school teacher from Buenos Aires who was always half-shaven and wore the same jacket everyday, with only his fingertips poking out from the cuffs, and in one hand was always the World Cup fixture sheet he had picked up at McDonalds, where it had lined his lunch tray. Throughout the day, he unfolded the fixture sheet and updated the scores when each match finished. But each day he also dressed in a different Argentina jersey – some baby blue for the national team, some dark blue for his favorite soccer club team back home. We arrived hours early at the match at Soccer City stadium that day so he could string up a 9-meter long banner he had made showing the name of his favorite club team, Burzaco. How could I not also feel it for Leonardo's Argentina that day? Leonardo and I hold up the Burzaco banner.

 The Onion has a nice and satirical introduction for those new to watching World Cup soccer, “because there's so much more to the game than not using one's hands.”

Port Elizabeth, or the city which the new government has renamed Nelson Mandela Bay, built a stadium just for the World Cup. It's a beautiful big bowl with a white canopy covering most of the seats. The paint is fresh and the plastic seats are unscratched. But it was half empty when the teams kicked off Saturday for the first match of the Round of 16.

I noticed as I checked Fifa's website that this stadium has the most available tickets of any stadium, I said to my South African friend, Garth. “I'm not surprised. The Eastern Cape is the poorest province in the country. And people are just slow to do anything here. It's just a general lassitude,” he said.

Garth lives just down the road in Jeffrey's Bay, and though he's not so into soccer he said he would enjoy accompanying me to the match.

The row below our seats was empty, so we could rest our legs on the backs of those seats, and to my right there was no one, so I could set my notebook and a bar of chocolate there. I appreciated the relaxed atmosphere that came with a smaller crowd, just as a change of pace. My ears appreciated there being no vuvuzelas nearby; the day before on my drive down to the Eastern Cape they had suddenly lost half their hearing, and I wondered if it didn't have anything to do with the horn blowing they had endured over the past weeks.

The stadium's look was half empty, the sound was mild, and there were fewer people around wearing South Africa's yellow Bafana Bafana jerseys. The country had truly seemed on fire for the World Cup before the home team lost out last week, but the air felt so tempered now. Bafana Bafana being out might also account for the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium being less than full.

On the big screens the night's attendance was announced at 30,597. The stadium has a capacity of 46,082. So, two-thirds full.

I hadn't seen anyone outside the stadium selling tickets. Fifa 's strict ticket regulations probably accounted for some of the lack of attendance too. Tickets can only be legally bought through Fifa-approved providers, they can only be resold through Fifa's website, and they cannot be legally resold at all if the buyer has already printed a hard copy of the ticket. Scalpers do exist outside stadiums, as I'd seen on other nights, but they risk arrest.

Still, there were four blocks of fans down in the lower seats going wild to support their countries on this night. Two blocks wore all red for South Korea and two blocks flew blue flags for Uruguay. Ugh, I had to watch the pink pajamas play again, which I hadn't known when I purchased the tickets months ago. But Garth said he would root for them since they were also from the Southern Hemisphere. I went for the South Koreans of course; many of my English students back in San Diego are from South Korea.South Koreans cover up for their national anthem.Unfortunately, Uruguay went up 2-1 in the second half, and then the physical rain started. The white canopy protected us. Only light mist occasionally reached our upper level seats, but the players got soaked and so did the lower rows of fans. Soon the bottom 15 rows were nearly cleared out and the stadium looked even emptier. Two-thirds full and draining due to the downpour. When the referee blew his whistle at 93 minutes there was only light clapping for the Uruguayan whiners, I mean winners.

I continued to think of reasons for why a World Cup match in soccer crazy South Africa would only be two-thirds packed, and I got another idea when we arrived back at Garth's house. His wife said his father had called while we were gone. She told his father that we had gone to the game, to which the father replied, “They went to East London?” For that was where a rugby match was being played that night. It didn't help to fill seats at a World Cup of soccer match that the people in South Africa who have the most disposable income, the whites, are mostly interested in any sport other than soccer. UPDATE: Port Elizabeth's professional soccer team has been sold and may move, leaving the brand new stadium as a white elephant.

 Tim Howard, best goalkeeper in the USA. Kelly Slater, best surfer in the USA. 

I have attended multiple games in Johannesburg, the supposed epicenter of World Cup 2010, where the flagship stadium, Soccer City, was built and where the final will be played on July 11. But the match between South Africa and France in Bloemfontein on Tuesday had a far better audience than any of the Joburg games. Directly after kickoff, vuvuzelas went quiet. And the crowd began to sing together. The first song was “Thiba ka bona, e bolaea ntja sena.” Or the Sesotho words sounded like that: Stop these killer dogs. I didn't ask if I'd heard correctly. I didn't care, really. I was just so happy to be doing something in the stands other than listen to incessant vuvuzela drone in my ears. And the fun didn't stop there.

We then clapped in unison. Then we stomped as the wave toured the stadium and we stood up and sat down. When a Bafana Bafana player dribbled dangerously close to the French goal vuvuzelas lit up, or when there was a corner kick, or after South Africa scored their first goal, vuvuzelas lit up. But the crowd at Free State Stadium didn't keep their lips locked on their horns, tooting them endlessly and mindlessly as everyone did in the Johannesburg stadiums. It was an incredibly pleasant change. I actually enjoyed hearing the vuvus come up as something exciting was about to happen. And after South Africa scored their first goal the crowd chanted together the name of the scorer, “Khumalo, Bongani.”

I'd always thought Bloemfontein was a dry town in the flat and boring center of the country, but it has the greatest soccer fans. It was right that Bafana Bafana bowed out of the tournament before the best crowd.

The team from North Korea has got to be the most intriguing of the 2010 World Cup. And a look at the roster of the team shows that many of its members play professionally for a soccer club back home called April 25. A date is a curious name for a sports team.

It turns out, however, that this date for this sports team makes a lot of sense, for April 25 is Military Foundation Day in North Korea, and North Korea is the most militarized country in the world, with about 20% of all North Korean men being in the armed forces. Further, the professional soccer team April 25 is not only named after Military Foundation Day but also actually belongs to the Korean People's Army.

Word was that more Americans had bought World Cup tickets than any other nationality besides South Africans. But fans in red, white and blue were hard to find when the event opened in Johannesburg. Had they decided not to come after all, or were they dressed inconspicuously?

Over the first week of the World Cup I did discover a few Americans, only after I heard them speak and pinpointed their accent. Few of them were dressed like the soccer fans I'd encountered from other countries. Leonardo, my roommate at the hostel, wore a different Argentina jersey everyday. Peter, from Ghana, had a jacket colored red, yellow and green like his homeland's flag. Some German students actually wrapped themselves in their flag even as they watched a match between other teams on the television. I didn't know if American fans were afraid of terrorist plots or if they just hadn't known where to buy the US soccer team goods.

At the US vs. Slovenia match at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Friday, however, American fans appeared in full regalia, as if they had been saving the show for the stadium. There was a guy dressed as Bill Clinton, a cowboy and an Indian. There was an Elvis. One couple wore matching stars and stripes aprons. Three US fans arrived in NASA astronaut costumes. The Americans were loud too. They sang songs: “Oh when the Yanks go marching in …” and even the Biz Markie classic, “Oh baby you, you got what I need, but you say he's just a friend.” But especially there were military-style chants of U-S-A!

Unlike at the Argentina vs. South Korea match I attended before, US fans did not cover the railings with banners and flags. The stadium actually looked a little empty because of that. Nor did Americans sit in colored blocks, where a thousand fans would be seated together, all in baby blue for Argentina, or red for Korea. American fans were just sprinkled throughout the stands, begging a reference to the nation's reputation as individualistic.

When that Argentina vs. South Korea match had ended, the Argentine players bolted off the field for the exit. It seemed almost disrespectful. But the South Koreans acknowledged their fans with appreciation. At Ellis Park on Friday, the American national team spent even more time than the South Koreans rounding the field and clapping up into the stands, more time than any other team I'd seen thus far. Soccer is not the national sport in the US that it is elsewhere, but the US national team seemed exceptionally grateful for every American who made the trip to the other end of the world to support them. 

Sandton FIFA Fan FestNot everyone can afford tickets to games, and no one can actually fly around South Africa to attend every match, but Fan Fest parks have been set up which are supposed to mimick the feeling of being in a stadium. There is a giant screen broadcasting the match, a grassy area to watch from, and food and drink stands around. Every host city in South Africa has a Fan Fest park set up, except for Johannesburg. Being the heart of South African soccer and the 2010 World Cup, Joburg has two FIFA Fan Fests. One is in Sandton, the wealthy suburb north of Johannesburg, and the other is in Soweto, the township made famous during the apartheid struggle.

I've been keeping a pansy list. It includes players which, when an opponent gets close enough, throw their hands in the air, arch their backs, roll in the grass and then look at the referee with a soap opera face while grasping their shins for dear life. Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo is on the pansy list, and so is Oezil from Germany. France and Ghana have some players on it too, but then last night's game between South Africa and Uruguay made the list obsolete. For Uruguay tops them all. Uruguay wears pink pajamas.

They spent so much time on their knees in the grass, writhing in fake pain, that the referee eventually fell for one of the acting jobs and awarded them a foul which probably ended South Africa's World Cup.

Uruguay was the better team, technically. They were up a goal, and they didn't need to cheat, but they did. A Uruguayan player and the South African goalie were both running at the ball when the goalie slid, the Uruguayan jumped, and the tip of one of the goalie's cleats kissed the tip of one of the Uruguayan player's cleats. Then the Uruguayan, Luis Suarez, twisted himself in the air, spread his arms out wide and looked to the referee begging. The referee kicked out Itumeleng Khune, the South African goalie. Uruguay got a penalty kick and went up 2-0. The stands were shocked. The entire country seemed deflated. The South Africans in the room with me were silent. The television announcer stuttered until he said, “People in the country are likely to lose interest in the World Cup now.”

It wasn't that Bafana Bafana was going to lose the game 2-0; it was that they got ripped off. Soon enough, the stands began emptying. The likelihood that South Africa can now make it to the next round is paper thin.

I hear no more vuvuzelas outside my window. Thanks, Uruguay. I hope you sleep well in your fuzzy wuzzy pansy pants.