Day 599, part 2 – Bafana Bafana out of World Cup thanks to this “penalty” “decision”

Full disclosure: I didn’t watch the match – way too late for me right now.
Just catching up now and… well… wow. This one needs sharing for posterity.
You’re Ghana love it.

Thoughts and prayers with the player involved. Unlikely to ever play again, looking at this.
Less sympathy for the referee’s bank account.

Ghana’s 1-0 win (the goal coming from this decision) means that the final table looks like this:

…meaning that South Africa don’t qualify, but Ghana do.

Convenient.

And you can talk all you like about missed chances and winning games you only drew and and and, but there were plenty of other close calls across the world yesterday (not least this amazing game – or this one), whose outcomes weren’t then ruined by a really, really, dodgy decision.

Africa stays laughable. And losing.

Day 77 – 10 years on

Well lookie here now. It’s 11th June 2020.

5 years on from 11th June 2015. (But that’s not important right now.)

10 years on from 11th June 2010. And that was the first day of the Football World Cup in South Africa. Remember those halcyon days?

Remember that halcyon day? We went to the Waterfront and watched Bafana v Mexico in Joburg:

You know… the one with that goal:

…before heading to the stadium to watch Uruguay and France:

…and the hyperactive Uruguayan marking on the French dangerman.

On the way back to the car after the game, I distinctly remember us chatting about how dull the game had been and how in just a decade, we’d all be trapped inside in the midst of a global pandemic.

Weird how these things pan out, isn’t it?

 

Here are my images from that day.

And here is a warning that I think there might be a few more World Cup posts on here over the next month. Because present day reality sucks.

 

Finals Day

This is another prewritten post, so I don’t know who is challenging for the 2018 World Cup. In fact, at this stage (the tournament kicks off in about 3 hours), even Google is unaware:

And you know that if Google doesn’t know, then neither does anyone else.

8 years ago, it was the final of the World Cup in South Africa. And, while it wasn’t held in Cape Town, I still think a quota photo of the stadium is somehow appropriate. After all, one of the semi-finals (I believe there’s one of them happening today?) was held here:

I actually took this in December 2009 – on the night of the draw for the World Cup in South Africa, after a busy night on Long Street.

Memories…

Fikile – u ok hon?

Here’s a statement by our erstwhile Sports Minister, Fikile Mbalula over the weekend:

fm statement

and here’s a letter which has popped into the public domain this morning:

fifa letter

Of course, even though the $10 million payment was made to Jack Warner, it wasn’t a bribe, in the same way that that body of water at Nkandla isn’t meant for any purpose other than fighting fires.

And if it was a bribe, why would they have made that huge PR effort and the big song and dance about such a generous donation to such a worthy cause?

Nah, this totally seems legit.

Comedy moments

Today in politics:

Firstly, Sports Minister Fikile “Fickle” Mbalula (see blog passim) reacted to the FIFAgate scandal and the allegation that the SA Government had paid a $10m bribe to bring the 2010 World Cup to South Africa, with this gem:

David Smith on Twitter Mbalula As a nation we will be the first to endorse the fight against corruption wherever it is found. Media is casting aspersions. - Google Chrome 2015-05-28 014812 PM.bmp

Yep. No corruption in this nation. Absolutely not. None.
Here are some other ridiculous things he said, helpfully illustrated by high class rag The Times.

Glad we’ve got that sorted.

Then, Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko told us that the R250m upgrades to the President’s residence in KZN were necessary for security purposes and therefore, JZ doesn’t have to pay for them.

CGFpkGnUMAAOBOF

You might think that this is fair enough, but let’s just see how much they had to stretch to get some of the less obvious “security” upgrades into the “security upgrade” bracket:

nkand

And good job too, because those chickens could obviously pose a definite danger to Number 1. And in the event of an emergency, where else are you going to be able to assemble if not in an amphitheatre?

It does rather make you think that they’re taking the piss now. I mean, the signs that they’ve been taking the piss have been there for a while, but we definitely do seem to have crossed yet another line of pisstakery with today’s events.

Quoth Tom Eaton (in a post/column written (I think) ahead of the FIFA or Nkandla developments mentioned above):

They know we’re watching, but they don’t care. We’re just scenery to them now, a fleeting impression to be remembered one day when they’re lying on their private beach, laughing about the old days when they were making their pile.

Yes.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get off home to build an animal enclosure next to the firepool to stop the beagle crapping in my amphitheatre.