Category: world cup 2010

World Cup Issues

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A couple of World Cup images that caught my interest today.

Firstly, The Onion reports on an error that I’m shocked no-one had spotted before:

No wonder the Germans (and the Italians) (and the Spanish) (etc etc) are complaining about it.

And then, a little more seriously (I hope) the SABC Building, patriotically illuminated:

Look – it’s a great effort and it looks really beautiful, but when the flag is displayed vertically, the red should be on the left.
Not a big thing, but this is the national broadcaster.

Shouldn’t they know?

Avoid costly mobile phone bills while in South Africa

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I can’t actually believe that I’m writing this. This sort of thing is so basic, it shouldn’t need to be written. And that’s going to open the floodgates to all sorts of other basic advice posts like how to wipe your bum after going to the toilet and how you should use a spoon instead of a fork when eating soup. Stuff you really shouldn’t need to be told.
It’s a road I don’t want to go down, but Sky News have forced me to with this article on their website:

World Cup Warning: £80 To Post Photos Online
World Cup ticket holders may need to resist the temptation to make friends envious by posting pictures online using their mobile phones, a customer group has warned.
Consumer Focus calculated that the cost of uploading just 10 photos to Facebook from South Africa could result in an eye-watering £80 bill from a UK mobile operator.

The article goes on to say that visitors should look for an internet cafe to use while they are here, or stock up on text and data bundles before they head over. But there’s a much better way, isn’t there?

My #worldcuphost mode kicks in.
If you’re  coming over for the World Cup, your first stop after the airport and the pub should be a supermarket or post office. There, you can pick up a Vodacom or MTN SIM card, which will cost no more than R1. That’s a whole 9 pence. You’ll need to have your passport with you to register the SIM in your name.
Stock up with some airtime from the friendly cashier, put that new SIM card in your phone – don’t forget to take your UK one out first – and use it for the duration of your stay.
That’s it, there are no more instructions.

Texts back to Blighty will cost around R1.50 (14p) each and data is around R2/MB (that’s 18p).
Train smash averted.

What? You remain unconvinced and  need some further encouragement that this is the correct way to go? Then let me help you out with an ever so basic example.
I’ve done some rudimentary calculations and I reckon that with the current exchange rate at about £1/R11.25 and the average price of a bottle of beer in a pub of R15, that £80 quid you were about to waste on Facebook could get you 60 (sixty!) extra bottles of beer.

I think you should send a few of them my way, don’t you?

Squads confirmed (ish)

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Each team participating at the FIFA World Cup 2010 has until midnight tonight to name their final 23 man squads. Bafana Bafana named theirs at a press conference this morning and the bi g news (worldwide) was the omission of striker Benni McCarthy.

Goalkeepers: Itumeleng Khune, Moeneeb Josephs, Shu-aib Walters

Defenders: Aaron Mokoena (captain), Siboniso Gaxa, Bongani Khumalo, Anele Ngcongca, Tsepo Masilela, Lucas Twala, Mathew Booth, Lance Davids, Siyabonga Sangweni

Midfielders: Teko Modise, Siphiwe Tshabalala, Steven Pienaar, Thanduyise Khuboni, Kagiso Dikgacoi, Macbeth Sibaya, Reneilwe Letsholonyane, Surprise Moriri

Strikers: Bernard Parker, Katlego Mphela, Siyabonga Nomvete

Following last night’s 5-0 win over Guatemala in Polokwane, South frica have now gone 11 matches unbeaten and face Denmark in their final warm-up game before next Friday’s opener against Mexico at Soccer City.

England’s squad announcement, due at lunchtime was delayed until this afternoon. But that didn’t stop journalists leaking the details of the 7 players left out of Fabio Capello’s original 30-man training squad.
As the BBC’s exasperated Jonathan Stevenson remarked:

This is a most unsatisfying resolution to quite an important announcement. We’re still waiting on the names of four of the England players who will not be travelling to South Africa.

and then:

Oh for crying out loud. I love Fabio, but this has gone on way too long – and according to Express sport, the official announcement won’t be until 1500 BST now. It’s frankly a shambolic and unacceptable way for England’s World Cup campaign to begin.
Transfer deadline day ain’t got nothing on this. It’s carnage.

And he’s right. After a blisteringly good qualifying campaign, England have looked shakier and shakier against Mexico and then Japan. Now, the FA have messed up the squad announcement which should have been a straightforward press conference: how difficult is it to read out 23 names?

Are the wheels coming off already? It’s really not a good start.

UPDATE: Finally – at 1600 BST, the rumours are confirmed:

ENGLAND’S 2010 WORLD CUP SQUAD:
Goalkeepers: Joe Hart, David James, Robert Green.

Defenders: Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock

Midfielders: Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Shaun Wright-Phillips.

Forwards: Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney

Meaning that Leighton Baines, Michael Dawson, Tom Huddlestone, Scott Parker, Adam Johnson, Theo Walcott and Darren Bent don’t make the squad of 23.

Upson, Carragher, Carrick, and Lennon look like the weak links to me. Oh – and all the goalkeepers.

Positive thoughts from Gordon Gilbert

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I don’t have too much to add to this excellent interview with footballer Gordon Gilbert – “The Jock who became a Bok” – from The Scotsman:

Although he was brought up in Scotland, Gordon Gilbert was born in South Africa, where he now lives and works. For a few weeks every summer, he is back in Perthshire, telling people what it is like over there, and why it is special, but too many of them just don’t get it. Too many of them have no idea about the host nation of the 2010 World Cup finals. 

Firstly, putting the record straight for the “experts” on the country who have never even been here (one of my pet hates):

“People have the wrong impression of South Africa,” he says. “People who have never been there think that there are elephants roaming about the streets and monkeys climbing the trees in your garden. Once you’ve been there, you realise how far that is from the truth. You see how beautiful it is, how the crime and all the negative stuff is blown out of proportion. It’s certainly not a third-world country in my eyes.”

See? It’s not just me.
On vuvuzelas (also here) and the atmosphere at South African games:

“I don’t know if you’ve heard of these vuvuzelas, horns that are constantly being blown during the match. My stepdad, who has watched football all his days, came over to watch me in the Nedbank Cup final, and he said he’d never experienced anything like it.
The noise is unbelievable. They are up dancing, playing the drums, getting very emotional about the outcome. For the players, it is just brilliant.”

And then, the really serious stuff – how will this tournament help unite this historically and culturally divided nation?

Whether the finals will help football to bridge the racial divide is another matter. Gilbert is one of few white players in South African football. Another is Matthew Booth, who plays for the national team. There will be plenty talk these next few weeks of the Rainbow Nation, of the game’s potential to unite black and white, just as there was after the 1995 Rugby World Cup – when Mandela famously donned the Springbok jersey – but is it realistic? 

“It’s difficult for me to think that, just because we’ve got the World Cup finals, everybody is going to mix overnight. Yes, they are now living and working together in the same country, but the cultures are very different. If you go to a rugby game, the guys are very reserved. They’re not blowing horns like they do in football. Will there be more whites in football because of this? I don’t know. What I do know is that South African football will be the stronger for it. People are not going to look down on it anymore.

Of course, this interview, published on Sunday, was almost certainly done before the all South African Super14 final between the Bulls and the Stormers. Because that was packed full of vuvuzelas, start to finish. And gave us these amazing photos.
Maybe Gordon might want to revise his thoughts on that one…

Many thanks to Altus Momberg for the heads up.

Chairs, Cups, Cheats, Chumps

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No one thing grabbed my attention from the information overload that I now find myself happily facing on a daily basis. This is actually a good thing for you, my reader, because it is unlikely that I will rant about the paranoia and misconceptions of an irritated acrophobe, celebrate my good fortune at the hands of David Cameron or mourn the demise of an unfortunate giraffe.

No, today has been far more relaxed and it is in that laid-back frame of mind that I give you the following items for you perusal:

Via the ever entertaining Brian Micklethwait, a chair that rolls into exactly the correct shape.
Brian has (entirely justified) concerns over the longevity of this design, but as he says:

But what the hell, it’s only a chair, and if it goes wrong, it goes wrong.  It still made for a pretty set of pictures. 

Next up, a brilliant story from South Yorkshire Police about how the European Cup – currently in Milan and already booked for Madrid next year – came to arrive in their West Bar headquarters in Sheffield, having been “borrowed” by an aggrieved pub visitor in Birmingham.

The tale is from 1982 after Aston Villa FC won the European Cup.
The players had been celebrating at a pub in the West Midlands and, as the night wore on, the players had allegedly become more boisterous. A young man at the venue with his girlfriend took exception to their behaviour and asked them to show some respect for other customers. His request was allegedly met with more abuse. And so the man decided to play a prank on them. As no-one seemed to be paying attention to the European Cup, he decided to pick it up and see how far he could walk away with it before anyone noticed.

It’s a great story, made even more entertaining for me by SYP’s refusal – almost 30 years on – to commit that the Villa players had actually become more boisterous or had actually abused the young man in question.

Finally, another World Cup warning for the weary England fans who have already had to contend with race wars, earthquakes, snakes and tropical diseases. This time, it’s a reasonable request to be aware of online ticket scams.

According to the Office of Fair Trading, one in 12 ticket buyers are caught out by fraud each year.
Research from online ticket marketplace viagogo suggests almost half a million Britons have been duped by a bogus ticket sellers in the past 12 months.

I’m forever deleting spam from illegal ticket vendors on my World Cup posts. But the only frustration for ticket buyers here was the fact that FIFA’s systems failed yet again when the last 90,000 World Cup tickets went on sale in South Africa this morning.

As someone – I can’t remember who – pointed out on twitter:

FIFA – You keep asking if South Africa is ready. We are – so why weren’t you?