Ticket fever

You can't miss it unless you are detached from SA reality today. It's world cup ticket fever.

Tickets go on sale (last chance) across SA and football freaks have been waiting through the night in line outside a ticket office in Sandton or Maponya Mall in Soweto, or at any other world cup sales location.

The final on July 11 at Soccer City is sold out already. And I guess same thing for the opening game in same stadium on June 11: Bafana Bafana vs Mexico.

And I guess many Brazilian and English games are pretty full too. Wondering if anybody in those overnight queues are frantically trying to get a ticket for North Korea vs Portugal in Cape Town on June 21st; or maybe Honduras against Chile in Nelspruit on June 16; or maybe some are interested to witness the Kiwis vs Slovakia in Rustenburg on June 15.

Am curious to know which are the less-sold games. The ones the LOC will have to bus in people to fill up the stadiums. Good idea. Free entertainment for the poor.

I stick to my prognosis of a Brazil vs Spain final with the golden trophy catching a flight out of SA to Madrid on July 12.

Fiestas across Spain

So in 100 days + 1 month, Brazil has just lost 3-2 to Spain in the 2010 world cup final in a sold out Soccer City. Liverpool ace Torres was the main man with 2 goals. Kaka, Ronaldinho and all the other Brazilian superstars just couldn't stop the Spanish armada.

And the streets of Spain start celebrating. All night long. Summer fiestas across Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Bilbao,...

And that was the world cup 2010. That was....

150

150 Days to kickoff at Soccer City. That's all. It's really around the corner now.

Bafana Bafana vs Mexico on June 11 is coming and is coming very soon.

Despite the Togolese misery (and bad luck) in Cabinda on Friday, the Africa Cup of Nations kicked off yesterday in Luanda with an amazing 4-4 between host Angola and Mali. Angola was 4-0 up till 15 minutes before the end of the game, and then Mali just did the unthinkable.

Soccer City

Check this out. The chief-engineer for the construction of the brand new Soccer City stadium is a Belgian! Marc Meire. He moved to SA in the 80s and started working for a local construction company. He climbed the ladder and the company became bigger and bigger too. It got the deal to built Soccer City and that's that. As a kid Marc admired New York's Twin Towers (RIP) and wanted to built something big and amazing. With Soccer City his dream came true.

Next Sunday Belgian tv VRT will show a feature about Marc and his Soccer City challenge. You can watch the channel on the Specialist Bouquet on DSTV. The channel is called BVN, which combines Dutch and Belgian broadcasters. The piece about Marc will be in Sportweekend - a weekly sports magazine - aired straight after the evening news, which starts at 8PM (SA time).

p.s. The story was filmed by a SA cameraman.

252

A new month today. October. And 252 days to go to kick off at Soweto’s Soccer City in June next year.

FIFA just finished a tour of the newly built stadiums across the country. The world cup will be spread over 10 football/soccer temples in 9 cities, but 6 of them are brand new and near completion. All are smoothly on track it seems. Smiles all over!!

Officially Soccer City in Soweto was “only” upgraded, but to be honest the whole old stadium was put down and a totally new one was built from scratch. So for me that fits the brand new category.

And so far already 650527 tickets have been sold. World cup fever guaranteed.

I am slightly surprised that by now only 11 national teams of the 32 that will be present here have already the qualification in the bag. By end of November all 32 must be known because on December 4th in Cape Town the groups for the first round of the world cup will be drawn. So I guess in the coming weeks we will see a lot of do or die matches across the globe to grab qualification – or to lose out. Tensions are rising for sure. Travel agents anxiously awaiting final whistles. Footballers’ wives hating the doubts if it will be a (winter) holiday in South Africa or a beach show off in Bermuda. It’s tough living a stress full existence! Sandton shopping mall checking out which ladies will come and spend the husband’s earned millions. The men sweating on the training grounds as the ladies run around shiny corridors with overloaded shopping bags. Now I understand why VISA / Mastercard is an official sponsor of the world cup.

Here’s a little, sporty update amidst the fever. I was curious and did a quick search.

So, if I’m right, for now the only teams with already guaranteed presence in SA are Bafana Bafana as host, star-attraction Brazil, Paraguay, Spain, North (!!) as well as South Korea, Ghana, the Netherlands, England Australia and Japan.

It’s unlikely the world’s most expensive player will be here. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal is facing a nearly impossible task in their qualifying group. In Africa Nigeria is nervous as they might miss the world cup too because Tunisia is leading in their group. Same stress for African giants Egypt. They are currently second, trailing 3 points behind Algeria. And for Didier Drogba’s Ivory Coast it all just seems a formality. Am sure they booked their air tickets already.

Back in Europe, little Switzerland is making a strong chance of visiting SA. Germany and Russia are pretty much guaranteed presence too. A world cup without Germany seems near impossible. France is sweating it out. They are currently second in their group behind Serbia, but have Austria breathing down their neck. Italy, despite disappointing matches during this year’s Confederations Cup, looks likely to be back in the country.

Others likely to grace us with their presence are the USA, Argentina (hopefully still with coach Diego Maradona), Mexico, and maybe also the All Whites from New Zealand.

If rugby fans are a bit drunk they might think this upcoming world cup is a rugby competition as England, SA, Australia, and maybe New Zealand and France too will be battling it out on a grass pitch.

lunch @ the Troyeville Hotel

The fact that it rained in Johannesburg last night says it all. Winter is now really over. It was welcoming rain. Nature is smiling today. For those unknown to the meteorology of the City of Gold, be advised that winter here on the so called Highveld is dry. Very dry. As dry as the Algerian desert on a hot summer day. And thus as the flowers are waking up to the new season and the birds are happily busy with a new family, the rain was very much welcomed. Drops of life.

260 Days to go to high fever. That’s 37 weeks and a few days to the kick off whistle of the opening game in Africa’s football/soccer first world cup ever. Madness guaranteed. The opening game will be played in the brand new FNB stadium in Johannesburg’s south-western township Soweto. That stadium is now officially named Soccer City. Joburg is also host to another world cup football temple. Ellis Park. I think it’s called Coca-Cola Stadium now. That is TBC.

Ellis Park lies in the middle of town. Down town is a metropolis with a bad reputation. But down town is also a city with a shiny new bus system. And a stone throw away from Ellis Park stands the Troyeville Hotel. It’s indeed just a stone throw away. You don’t even have to be an Olympic athlete to throw this imaginable stone. From the terrace of the hotel you could nearly touch Ellis Park. The giant from Gulliver’s Travel would not even have to stretch his arm. So that stone throw is for us mortals easily within reach. Unless of course you are a plastic-human, socialite type like the Paris Hiltons of this world. Then that stone throw might upset your hairdo or undo your botox treatment.

Anyway. Last Joburg winter the 4 of us were having a relaxed lunch at the Troyeville Hotel. Portuguese lunch because that is what the menu there has to offer. Simple but perfectly tasting. The company was great, the food good and the winter sun spreading warmth through the large windows. I see that this week the menu highlights grilled kalamari with chips. Mouth-watering. I wonder when a game is on in next door Ellis Park if the rolling thunder of the fans stamping their feet and blowing their by now famous Vuvuzela trumpets would tremble your plate of fine food. An Ellis Park earthquake ripple effect.

For more on the Troyeville Hotel just copy and paste this link: www.troyevillehotel.co.za



Last year November the Troyeville Hotel was also host to a pretty big and loud party celebrating Barack Obama’s victory in those historic US presidential polls. It was red, white and blue all over.