Reuters Soccer Blog

World Cup podcast – day 3

Welcome to our Reuters podcast on day three of the World Cup. Today’s brief encounter contains expert comment from Brian Homewood, Paul Radford, Theo Ruizenaar and Mark Gleeson plus a bit of fun at the expense of FIFA at the end.

world cup podcast day 3

Symbolic moment as rugby comes to black township of Soweto

South Africa’s long standing racist past means it still a country of great contrasts but with the change in power and social dynamics come great ironies too.

The latest will be played out on Saturday when the citadel of black South African football, the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, plays host to a Super 14 rugby match involving the Blue Bulls, the team so beloved by the white Afrikaners.

Although it is almost two decades since South Africa’s political changes began, it is the first time a match of this nature is hosted in a black township and represents the potential of dramatic images as thousands of white fans from the country’s most conservative areas head into the biggest black township to watch their team in the semifinals of the Super 14.

For most of the whites it will be their first trip anywhere near Soweto, scene of much of the internal unrest against apartheid in the 1970s and 80s and today rife with crime.

To that end, the Bulls union have laid on trains from Pretoria to the station right outside the Orlando Stadium and will bus in thousands of others, who are being invited to leave their cars several kilometres away from Soweto and use ‘park and ride’ facility.

The Bulls have had to give up home advantage in Pretoria for their semifinal against the Canterbury Crusaders because their cathedral, Loftus Versfeld, is one of the 10 World Cup stadiums and FIFA have taken over the venue to prepare the turf and other facilities before the tournament starts on June 11.

Loftus, also used during last year’s Confederations Cup, will host six World Cup matches, including South Africa’s second encounter of the tournament against Uruguay on June 16.

South African potential can emerge from mountain of bricks

We are now less than a week away from the start of the Confederations Cup and the first true test of South Africa’s preparedness to host the 2010 World Cup.

It’s hard for a lot of people to take the Confederations Cup seriously, although in Germany four years ago it did develop into a summer festival and in the end proved a tasty appetiser before the main meal 12 months later.

The field for South Africa is somewhat lob-sided: Brazil, Italy and the all-conquering Spanish are the strong favourites with the United States, Egypt and South Africa perhaps having the potential to create an upset. Iraq and New Zealand should pose few problems for the big teams.

Most importantly, though, this is a test of the organisational ability of the World Cup hosts, whose preparations for 2010 have been clouded by uncertainty.

That has been partly because of international scepticism over the ability of an African country to organise an event of the magnitude of the World Cup and partly because South Africa have failed dismally to spin the positives of their bid.

But the evidence of potential is now beginning to emerge from beneath the mountains of bricks and dramatic skyline of cranes.

The stadiums are all scheduled to be completed ahead of time and the country’s infrastructure is already looking sleeker and smarter, although new road works and airport upgrades continue at pace.

Tunisians need a little patience

One cannot fault Tunisian clubs for seeking perfection but you’d think a little more patience is needed if they are ever going to achieve their dream of continental dominance.

Take the case of Etoile Sahel. They have just fired their Swiss coach Michel Decastel for “indifferent results”.

Indifferent by their definition, is second place in the league and qualification for the final of the African Confederation Cup, the continent’s equivalent of the UEFA Cup. (more…)

Should France keep inviting African teams to Paris?

You can understand why the French rarely invite any of their former colonies over for so-called friendly internationals. On Tuesday night they again faced a barrage of abuse in their own backyard, with the vast majority of a sell-out crowd at Stade de France coming to support Tunisia against Les Bleus.

When Algeria played at the Stade de France in 2001, the game was eventually called off midway through the second half after Algerian supporters invaded the pitch. The match against Morocco last year earned notoriety after the jeering during the singing of La Marseillaise.

For the north Africans it remains a singular honour to be invited to play in France and Tunisia made little of securing a berth in the last phase of Africa’s World Cup qualifying last Saturday in the wake of all the excitement of the trip to Paris.

Of all their former colonies, France have only ever hosted Algeria, Cameroon, Morocco and Tunisia in the Stade de France. And it took decades before they sent an invitation. The Ivory Coast played a game in Montpellier but Senegal, who beat France in the opening game of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea, still await an invitation, even though they are one of the few countries in Africa where French influence still pervades. (more…)

An unnecessary Swiss trip

Africa’s remaining World Cup contenders have to travel north across the Mediterranean, over the Alps and on to Zurich next week to find out who they meet in the battle for places at the 2010 finals.

How ridiculous is it that the draw for the last phase of the African preliminaries will take place in the Swiss city ahead of a first-ever African World Cup and at a time when FIFA is trumpeting all sorts of African initiatives.

While the ceremony will take no longer than an hour, the symbolism of holding it in Zurich is sure to last longer.

One wonders what is wrong with the headquarters of African football, which are in Cairo, or in South Africa, where the next World Cup is being hosted.

The preliminary draw was a spectacular event in Durban last November and the Confederations Cup draw is scheduled for Johannesburg next month. But the draw for the business end of the African qualifiers is to be held in frosty Switzerland, stuck away in an obscure auditorium.

Holding the draw in Zurich actually makes it handy for some. African Confederation president Issa Hayatou has meetings in Zurich during the week and, as chairman of the 2010 World Cup Organising Committee, he will be a fairly important presence, one would think.

Mark Gleeson covers African football for Reuters

World Cup could fall flat if South Africa carry on losing

South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup is supposed to be a watershed for the world game and the African continent, an opportunity to emphasise the international flavour of the game and at the same time give an under privileged continent a chance to prove its potential and bask in the world spotlight.

To that end South Africa is a flurry of construction as new stadiums go up along with hotels, rail and road projects and a myriad of other infrastructure improvements.

But the most important building project should be the country’s football team, who have been to two previous World Cups but have never shown the ability to be truly considered among Africa’s real soccer superpowers.

South Africa won the African Nations Cup 12 years ago, when they hosted the tournament, reached the final two years later and were third in 2000. But it has been a downhill spiral ever since and on Saturday the team were effectively eliminated from the qualifiers for the 2010 Nations Cup finals in Angola.

A home loss to Nigeria left Bafana Bafana with four points from five matches in their group and all but mathematically out of contention. It will end a run of appearances at seven successive Nations Cup tournaments.

It is a massive embarrassment for the country that in the year in which they host the World Cup, they will not be among the 16 best African sides in the Nations Cup fields.