Flog - Viva South Africa

So that’s it. South Africa 2010 has been and gone. Four years in the making and a little over a month in the deciding. Sadly though, those five weeks sleepily crept by rather than roared past as if they never happened. Africa’s first ever World Cup failed to ignite from day one and looked as if it could have gone on until Brazil 2014 and we would still be filling in our wall-charts with more noughts than numbers.
In truth; it was rubbish. Which was a shame, because South Africa deserved better. Not so much the national team, who, despite beating France in their final group game, were shambolic against Uruguay to effectively eliminate them from their own tournament at the first hurdle. Any silver lining they fathomed in the defeat of France was cruelly shut out by the coverage the visitors acquired with their own debacle of a tournament. But as a nation, South Africa provided a vibrant competition which was only matched on the pitch in disappointingly short phases.
We could talk about the ball but it’s probably safe to assume it was shit, always was shit, was never not going to be shit and was to blame for a lot of shit. The argument that a bad workman always blames his tools does not fly with me either, seeing as it’s the equivalent of asking a workman to work with a drill made of pineapple. We can also assume it wont come into weekly use in the Premiership.
Other than a summer fete football and the endless drone of the vuvuzela, it’s difficult to tell how history judge the 2010 World Cup. Despite the low goal count (1-0 was the most common score in the entire tournament) and the failure of most of the individual leading lights to truly shine (I do not count Messi; he is, after all, just one man in that team, and was relatively unlucky not to finish with the Golden Boot award, whether they went out in the last 16 or not) we can all take away the fact that, at this moment, the best football nation in the world won the best competition in world football. Though at times I found myself screaming ‘just…bloody…shoot!’ at the television, they stuck to the same game plan that brought them the European Championship trophy two years ago. Eventually, in every game, particularly the knock-outs, they broke through with passing football again, evident enough in their 1-0 victory over Holland in the final. The Dutch could have easily won it in normal time too, though their style of play was not so much Total Football as Total Wipeout. I was expecting Richard Hammond to be commentating on Nigel de Jong’s attempt at piercing Xabi Alonso’s nipple with his boot.
I settled for Guy Mowbray in the BBC commentary box though, who has taken over the channel’s World Cup hot seat from John Motson very successfully. It’s such a shame that he has to share his microphone with Mark Lawreson, who started to completely lose the plot towards the end. Sarcastic, rude and smug are just some of the words I would love to make out of concrete and throw at him whenever he speaks. And that hair. THAT HAIR. Can he not just give it up? Or is he still smarting from having to shave his top lip all those years ago? He seems the sort to hold a whiskers related grudge.
But not even he can compare to ITV stalwart Clive Tyledsley, who has rightly been referred to as ‘the Anti-Christ’ on a well known social networking site. I know because I joined the group. Having lost the excellent Jim Beglin to illness earlier in the day of ITV’s semi-final between Uruguay and Holland, Tyldesley began the inevitable and tragic descent into madness; talking to himself, making up talking points as if from nowhere and, I'm sure, turning to his side to share a joke over his half time tea, only to see an empty chair, like the untouched pillow of an ex-lover who has since left, prompting tears and a tender touch of where Jim once sat and laughed with him. His facts are irrelevant and his comments range from dull to downright ludicrous. Why, oh why, couldn’t ITV have given him 300 tickets to sell on? And I don’t mean instead of Robbie Earle either. Think ‘along with’.
England, Argentina, Brazil, France and Italy all let themselves down, while Uruguay, Germany and New Zealand -let’s not forget, the only unbeaten team in the tournament (thank you for the stat Nadir Al-Ani)- can leave proud. Though the other two nations can bask in their moment, the Germans will use this as a marker for their young team in four year’s time, and though Spain might have something say about it, they wouldn’t be a bad bet.
But it’s likely the tournament will be remember for exactly what it was; pensive, tight football matches which were drowning in tactics. Not losing became more important than winning, and 4-5-1 officially took the torch from 4-4-2 for football’s elite. Deep lying midfielders were suddenly stars, not cogs. And it was all drowned out by thousands of horns that sounded like angry bees. So lets give South Africa the least it deserves and judge it as it is on face value: in the first ever World Cup on African soil, the best team in the world won it, and will give it one hell of a go in Brazil 2014 as well.
But that’s four years away. And that’s exactly what we said in 2006.