Day 26, Sunday June 20th, Johannesburg. From Sharon:
We arrived in Johannesburg last Wednesday, after our initial flight was cancelled and we had to spend the night in Addis Ababa. That entire experience, as well as our time in Uganda (which was amazing), and our first few days in Joburg will hopefully be covered at some later date. Or perhaps you'll just have to wait for the live retelling when we return. Hard to say.
Anyways, today we had a bunch of free time since our game wasn't until 830pm and we weren't terribly interested in the two earlier games. We tried to sleep in, since we've become the old people of the hostel, struggling to make it to the end of the late game every night. Since we were seeing the game in person today, we thought it might be best to still be awake by the end of it.
In the early afternoon, we made our way out to Campus Square, with the goal of buying me some more warm clothes since 1) it's freezing (apparently it's the coldest South African winter in 20 years) and 2) the hostel isn't really heated per se. The hostel folks suggested taking a cab, but we're both cheap and had time to burn, so we walked the probably 2.5 miles there and back. Down a highway. I promise it wasn't as dumb as that sounds. Some nice young guy also directed us in how to walk around the construction, ending our interaction with "no problem my bru," which is, we've learned, the SA equivalent of "bro."
The "mall" was nice, but we did come face to face with the fact that SA business hours are ridiculous. Most stores were closed by 2pm when we rolled in and some had been closed since 1. The ones that were open were closing at 3. Unclear to me how people live like this.
We got back, watched the Italy-New Zealand game at the hostel (tie?? No one saw that coming) and headed out to the game. Since we were leaving only two hours before game time (instead of our regular four), the bus and entrance gates getting down there were more crowded but still not that bad. The stadium was FULL of Brazilians. I've never seen so much yellow. The announced attrndance was over 84,000 people and you could definitely hear it - them Brazilians is LOUD. It was a pretty cool atmosphere and, like all the other games we've been to, we were able to go down close to the pitch and see the players run out for warm-up. (You would never be allowed in the good seats section in America that close to game time, which is a cultural/event difference that we've taken full advantage of at all our games)
Brian, for some reason known only to him and God, decided to wear his Argentina jersey to the match. I'm surprised we made it out alive. Besides being top South American rivals, Brazil and Argentina are also the top two teams performance-wise in the tournament thus far (and on the world stage in general), so there's not a lot of love lost between the two. And Brazilian fans were quite upset at Brian's blatant afront to their game. So we heard it quite a bit from them. An entire group of 10 young men spent about 10 minutes yelling and blowing their vuvuzelas at us. While we might have suffered permanent hearing damage as a result, at least we didn't get shivved, which I had thought could be a real possibility.
The game ended up 3-1, but I thought was played much closer than that sounds. At least until the last 20 minutes or so, Cote d'Ivoire had at least as many scoring opportunities as Brazil. And Brazil certainly wasn't dominating possession as I'm sure many thought they would. What they were doing is a lot of flopping and complaining about calls. I've always faulted the Brazilians for being foul drama queens, staying on the ground way too long after a foul or non-foul, and generally talking a little too much. I went into the game with an open mind, but they quickly proved to have not changed. Watching the re-play of the Kaka foul at the end looks like the ref overreacted to that particular incident, but they, and he in particular, were being so annoying and dive-y all game that I kinda believe that's soccer karma coming back to get you. Probably a unique opinion to be sure, but I stand by it (with apologies to my favorite Brazilians back home in Chapel Hill).
I think the Brazilians get the prize for being the loudest and most ferverent fans, so it was fun and exciting to be at the game. I'm glad Cote d'Ivoire got one back at the end, because they played a far better match than a lot of teams who have escaped in group play with a draw or even a win to show for their efforts. Unfortunately for them, they're in the group of death, so two really well-played games gets them only one point (a draw and a win).
We'vee got no games for the nex two days, so I'm not sure what we'll be up to. Possibly just mentally preparing for our two game day on Wednesday - we've got both US-Algeria and Germany-Ghana tickets, with plans to go to both. Should be an interesting day.
No comments:
Post a Comment