Football Friday: "MISTER! For the Love of God!" (& Football)

It was on the 21st of July 2012 that it finally dawned on me that I had a problem. I was standing at the gates to Cape Town Stadium when the well-meaning, but overly eager marshal said that my ticket was invalid because it wasn't scanning properly. Do I look like the type to buy on the Blackmarket? So of course, my inner Hulk (The Green one, not the Brazilian one) emerged and I threatened to do all kinds of violent things to his face. Let's just say I went full football hooligan on his ass. :/ And then I heard the kick-off to Manchester United vs Ajax Cape Town... and all hell broke loose. I don't know who was more afraid, the dozens of full grown men around me or the poor marshal. Eventually after much huffing and puffing I was allowed inside, no thanks to Tavia & Staci's giggles and re-enactments of my dramatics. But it was on that day that I truly felt the passion of loving and wanting something so bad that you'd be prepared to fight for it.

Cantona, Keane, Giggs, Scholes & Neville, these were names I learnt well before Mel C, Mel B, Gerry, Emma & Victoria... It wasn't that I outwardly rejected the conforms of being a little girl, it was just that I loved the game of football much more than any other forms of entertainment. Some of my earliest memories are sitting on our couch with my gran screaming and shouting obscenities at the TV. I was hooked. And it was exciting.

Which is not what this year's opening ceremony was. It was ok, at the most. Probably because we expected so much more from a country that became famous for over the top and extravagantly amazing carnivals. Even the German exchange student said in his ever dry, obvious voice: "This is shit". (And Pitbull's pants wasn't even on the stage yet.)

It was Nelson Mandela's speech at the inaugural Laureus World Sport Awards in 2000 that got the world to take note of the power of sport. He said: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination.”

Other Little Titbits Football Related:

1) Fabregas is dead to me.

2) Somebody should've taken Pitbull's measurements, that pants was offensively disgusting. He looked like a Mexican Miami Drug Lord smuggling premature puppies over the border.

3) How hot was JLo though? (and that other popstar woman with the legs)

4) How overrated is this guy?

 
For the next month I advise all non-football fans to go into hibernation. Mandela would not approve of your negative attitude.