Now, for the second thing that really grinds my gears – the Italian National Team. If you watched the New Zealand-Italy match today, you should understand why. The team is a disgrace to the sport and is a big reason why lots of people choose not to watch it. It amazes me that after years and years of the same flopping nonsense, the referees continue to reward them for doing it – in this instance, with a game-changing penalty that robbed the Kiwis of 2 more points and kept Italy in good standing within the group. How ludicrous was it? The New Zealand player who had a grip on the Italian player’s shirt was tugging him backwards and the Italian somehow managed to fall forwards. Unbelievable. Pretty much everybody in the casino was rooting for New Zealand, as it was being shown on TV screens all around the place.

At the conclusion of that match, it was time for us to leave the casino and take advantage of their very cheap parking so that we could hop a Park-n-Ride bus to our match – Brazil v. Ivory Coast. This match was being played at Soccer City, the largest venue in the World Cup, and quite possibly the largest venue since the US hosted in 1994 (not entirely certain about that). As the bus approached the stadium, it was tough not to gasp in awe. The stadium is beautiful. If, somehow, you haven’t seen a picture or video of it, the stadium was designed to look like traditional African pottery from the outside. This look is achieved using thousands of pieces of differently painted wood along with gaps throughout the structure to allow light from the stadium to stream out. It is not the tallest stadium from the outside, but that’s because it is sunk into the ground quite a bit. As we got off the bus, the atmosphere was buzzing with palpable excitement and anticipation. This was easily going to be the largest crowd of the 3 matches we’ve been to thus far, and with the place full of raucous Brazil supporters, I was ready to have a good time.

This was the first time where security was actually being effective at any of the matches we’ve been to, making people open their bags and take items out of their pockets. At the last 2 matches, we went through metal detectors, they beeped, and no one said a word. Once we finally made it through that checkpoint, we had to make our way around the massive stadium to get to the side where our ramp up to our seats was located. When we were looking on the seat map to see where we were sitting, it was disappointing; as it appeared that we had some pretty terrible seats high up in the corner. It took roughly 20 minutes for us to reach our location, going up the series of ramps that were very nicely hidden inside the “pottery” exterior until we finally got to the top. Once we were actually in our seats though, they turned out to be quite alright.

As massive as the stadium looked from the outside, it was nothing compared to what it looked like once we got to our seats. A sea of people – up, down, left, right, across, below – waves of yellow and green and orange. Horns blaring, flags waving, songs being sung – a true party scene. We had a great view of the close goal from our corner, although being up so high made it difficult to gauge the height of balls kicked in the air. After going to two matches that were not very full at all, this one was very, very full. Announced attendance was just under 85,000, making it the 4th largest sporting event I’ve ever attended as far as I can remember. The Brazilian fans far outnumbered the fans of Cote D’Ivoire, at least in appearance, with only small scattered pockets of orange able to be seen from our vantage point.

The starting line-ups were announced, with the largest cheers going to Kaka, Robinho and Didier Drogba that were to the point of almost deafening. The match itself started out fairly pedestrian. Both teams seemed to be feeling each other out, but nothing much was happening. The vuvuzelas started going into a “pulse” mode while the action lagged, and eventually a section of Brazilian fans started a coordinated cheer. Since the stadium was so large, it was difficult for the cheer to spread outside the section or filter down to the field level. In the 25th minute, Brazil struck with an unbelievable goal as Kaka showed why he is a world-class player getting the ball through a couple defenders and on to the foot of Luis Fabiano who made no mistake about slotting it home. 1-0 Brazil, and that’s how it remained through halftime.

The 2nd half brought one of the greatest goals I will probably ever witness in person in my life. Cote D’Ivoire was struggling to put any threat together for the beginning part of the half, and shortly thereafter Brazil put an end to any thought of a comeback courtesy of Luis Fabiano’s feet and concentration. I wish I had gotten my camera out in time to record the goal itself, but instead I, along with the rest of the crowd, could only stare in amazement as he popped the ball up over an opponent once, twice, and a third time to his left foot where he calmly powered it past the keeper to the delirious delight of everyone in attendance. While the replay showed he may have handled it with his right arm in order to bring it back down to himself, the goal was so incredible that to call it off for that would almost have been a disservice to those watching.

Following this, the crowd was clearly pulling for Cote d’Ivoire to do something, anything, to get back in the game and make it close and exciting. With this not happening, the crowd started a wave to generate some noise in the stadium. Normally, I hate the wave, as it distracts from watching the match and is completely overdone. This time, with 85,000 people in full roar, it was enjoyable. Shortly after it died down following a few full revolutions, Brazil put the match completely out of reach with a goal off of a perfect cross from Kaka to the foot of Elano who beat his defender to the ball. By the time Drogba headed one down into the net to make it 3-1, there was hardly any time left and virtually no chance of a comeback. As we started to leave to try and beat the crowd back to the busses, the remaining spectators started buzzing excitedly and we saw on the TV that Kaka had gotten red-carded for knocking a player down. Big news, since they play Portugal next and he won’t be available.

We got on the bus to head back to the casino to pick up our car to drive back to Pretoria, and the whole process took about an hour and a half or so. Not too terrible. Tomorrow we drop the car off and fly to Cape Town for the last leg of our adventure.

written by  nucappy on June 20, 2010 from Pretoria, South Africa
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
tagged SouthAfrica, Brazil and IvoryCoast
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Kaka's red card was...kaka. Enjoyed catching up on the blog. Tomorrow I'll be playing hooky from work to watch the USA-Algeria game. Obligatory USA chant: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

written by  Jere on June 22, 2010

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