Author: matt.kelemen

2010 was my first in person FIFA World Cup. My experience was what I thought it would be. The atmosphere at the Brazil v. Cote D’Ivoire game was super excellent. I got a Brazil facemask and flag. I got to use a mini-vuvuzela at the Brazil v. Cote D’Ivoire game. The Cote D’Ivoire fans were in little groups. There was a sea of Brazil fans, even a whole band and we were close to it.

The Argentina v. South Korea game had one of the ten best atmospheres of this World Cup. Gonzalo Higuain scored a hat-trick. Neither Messi nor Tevez scored a goal. But the score was 4-1. The fourth goal was an own-goal by a South Korean player. Tevez hit the crossbar on a crackin’ shot.

The US v. England game had an atmosphere that was magnificent! We were sitting with about 500 USA fans. There was this banner that had “1776, 1812, 1950, and 2010.” The banner told when the USA has beaten England before. The score was 1-1 at the finish. The US v. England game was at the Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenburg.

The US v. Slovenia game was at Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg. The US vs Slovenia game was super excellent. At half time Solvenia was winning 2 to 0, but the US in the second half made a great comeback. The US scored 3 goals but the third goal was taken away by the ref, but it was a bad call. The game ended at 2 to 2 – a tie.

The France v. Uruguay game was the most boring game I went to. The score was 0 to 0. The game was in the Cape Town Stadium. The Cape Town Stadium is named Green Point. We went on two buses to get there. I had a good seat. It was a night game and I fell asleep in the second half.

The Spain v. Honduras game was super, super, super excellent. The score was 2 Spain to 0 Honduras. Just like the Brazil v. IvoryCoast game there were islands of Honduras fans and a sea of Spain fans. David Villa scored both goals for Spain. The soccer playing was great!

All six games were really fun and amazing! I really wanted to go to the Cup and have a fun time.

[From Dylan & Adela] We went on safari in South Africa in Madikwe Reserve. We saw guinea fowl, ground squirrels, lions, elephants, white rhino, pearl spotted owl, baboon, zebra, red hertebeest, genet, water buffalo, wildebeest, warthog, monkey, steenbok, kudu, jackal, dwarf and slender mongoose, hundreds of other birds including the yellow and red horn billed birds. The most common animal we saw were impala — golden brown with black stripes on their rumps. We saw African wild cat though we did not see the wild dogs. We saw giraffe and we saw about 3423 trees.

[from Dylan] I met two friends– Peter and James. Peter is 11 and James is 9 and they got into fights with each other sometimes. I enjoyed playing soccer with them and marking my territory with them in the Bush when we had a drink break on our game drives.

I saw elephants drinking at the waterhole close to our lodge. But luckily there was an electric gate between us and the animals. But on the game rides we got veery close to the animals. We saw a lion and it was only 6 feet away from us. The lions we saw were mostly sleeping. My mom saw some lions that nobody else spotted and they were brothers who defend a territory. There names are Mateja and Cholo and I took a photo of Mateja licking his chops. I thought he was going to eat me for breakfast.

First thing in the morning I got up and got dressed for the safari ride. It was really cold– as low as 34 degrees F.  Then I had a muffin and hot chocolate before getting in the vehicle. We sat down in our seats with hot water bottles on our laps and we wrapped ourselves in blankets but it was still very, VERY, very COLD! We went out in the morning and the evening because that is when most of the animals hunt down prey to eat. So if we go out in the middle of the day we won’t really see that much action.  On the safari ride our driver was Jacques. He was really nice and I could ask him lots of questions. I got to sit next to Jacques and it was awesome. You got warm air when you sat in front because you got a blanket, hot water bottle and even two blankets AND you got warm air from the heaters and that felt really good.

We had to look for animals and we would find them on the road, in the grass, behind bushes. My favorite animal is the lion. I like them best because they are cool. They can run really fast. They can kill other animals. The thing that is really cool about them is that they bring down every animal except water buffalo and elephant.

We also watched some soccer in the evenings: Italy Paraguay 1-1; Brazil v North Korea 2-1; Germany trounced Australia 4-0. Slovakia and New Zealand tied their game 1-1. Slovakia scored right after halftime in the 49th minute of the game, and in added time someone from NZ boomed it right in the goal. It was awesome. It was really good and there was this player Ozil from Germany who missed three chances at goal. The second try he went around the goalkeeper but missed his shot. You can read more about soccer in my next blog…

During our week in Johannesburg, we were without phone or Internet connection, so the laptop was barely been opened. Lots to tell, including this final entry about the football…

We saw six matches in all in South Africa and they seemed to get better and better. The first was a dull affair, a nil-nil draw in Cape Town between France and Uruguay. In hindsight, we witnessed the beginning of the end for the French, who have proven to be a group of talented individuals in search of a team. They were the first of the favorites scratched off my list of possible Cup winners. Next came the US-England draw in Rustenburg (I wrote about this one earlier), and while the English might blame the Jabulani ball for their woes, I was inclined to think that the US came to play.

After a safari stint, we spent a week in Jozi and got to attend four matches and see three real contenders: Argentina, Brazil and Spain. Argentina simply outran South Korea in a 4-1 rout. Gonzalo Higuain got the glory with a hat-trick, but I’ll remember the play of Tevez and Messi, who hounded the Korean defense relentlessly. One of the ESPN writers, Jeff Bradley, got it exactly right in an article about Messi: you have to see him in person. “Television doesn’t do him justice.” I was also pleasantly reminded of the pride, spirit, and humor of the Argentinian fans. They got loud when it really mattered, singing above the din of the vuvuzelas. And they sold their own tee-shirts, superimposing Maradona’s hair onto Messi’s face, with the motto: “The legend continues!”

Several days later, Brazil took Ivory Coast to football school, demonstrating how the game is played when you’re really out to win. And they have one other advantage: everyone likes a winner. In addition to all the folks who trekked from Sao Paolo to Johannesburg, there were throngs of “Brazilians” who donned the yellow and green to root for the champions all across the Soccer City Stadium (which is a gem). I was pulling for the Elephants myself, but even in an African city, the orange shirts were few and far between.

Then there was Spain, or as I’m taking to calling them, David Villa & Friends. They were slick as you like, and they got a good result against Honduras, but the real story of this match was the appalling lack of depth of the CONCACAF region (that’s where the US and Mexico hail from). With all due respect to my Central American friends, Honduras just didn’t belong at the tournament… and I think that’s the only team about whom I would make that assessment. I wonder if it would have been any different had Costa Rica made it through.

Tucked in the middle of this soccer week was our second US match, this one against Slovenia. Again, we got to sit with the American faithful and again we got to witness a horrible start. By half-time, I was downright embarrassed. They were just pathetic. And yes, we also got to witness one of the great comebacks of World Cup history, with Landon Donovan jawing at his teammates to step it up. And yes, we were already jumping with joy by the time the ref mysteriously called back our winner. But, really! Down 0-2 at half-time to Slovenia? Maybe the US didn’t come to play after all. (We were on a plane for the Algeria thriller and I was stomping around my living room during the Ghana match. Not sure where I land on the overall performance; still thinking about it.)

From a football perspective, I couldn’t ask for more from our World Cup experience. Take out the France-Uruguay sleeper and we saw five cracking games, seventeen goals, a thrilling come-back, and a parade of many of the best players in the world, some of whom even lived up to their billing.