Then you might be just the person we’re looking for to captain this blog about the South African soccer team.

Writing for World Cup Blog is not a paid position. But it is a chance to represent your team and share your opinions on a well read website (World Cup Blog is the sister site of The Offside).

If interested, send an email to daryl[at]theoffside[dot]com and tell me why you’re the ideal person to write this blog.

FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke certainly thinks so and told the media last week that South Africa was on their way to host a successful tournament. He received assurances from ANC president Jacob Zuma that no top figures in the Local Organising Committee (LOC) would change, should Zuma be elected as the country’s leader next year.

Valcke said: “Zuma assured us he would maintain the continuity in the LOC if he should became South African president. It would be in the interest of everyone if that status quo remains to run the World Cup.”

Despite the negative reports dooming the Confederations and World Cups, Valcke is not wavering in his undying support for the host nation.

He added: “There is nothing we can do about the negative reports.

“I do not know where they come from. We will prove all the doubters wrong.

“Believe me, this World Cup will be a huge success. All our reputations are on the line. We are happy with the way things are running.”

He concluded: “I am confident all the stadiums will be ready on time, plus all the roads leading to and from the stadiums – as well as the transport needed.”

But let’s look at the important factors to ensure the competition runs off without a hitch.

Stadiums

A FIFA and LOC delegation have given crucial deadlines for completion of the five stadiums to be used for the 2009 Confederations Cup.

And LOC chairman Irvin Khoza shares this sentiment, saying: “At this stage all five stadiums are still in. We are placing tight monitoring on all of them and if by any chance if any of them fails to comply with the agreed deadlines they will be removed (from the FIFA Confederations Cup schedule).

Hopefully the threats, I mean deadlines, will be the right motivation to ensure the work gets done properly and efficiently.

Administration

When South Africa won the rights to host the World Cup, the LOC, led by chief executive Danny Jordaan, were labelled heroes. But recent controversy within the organisation has made all of us worry that if the LOC can’t get its house in order, how on earth is it going to organise a successful World Cup?

Earlier this year, Director of Communications, Tim Modise, resigned, allegedly clashing with “control freak” Jordaan. The two settled their squabble and the former TV and radio talk show host returned to his post. Modise told The Citizen: “Irrespective of my relations with the employer, I will continue to support the tournament.”

Then South Africa’s media darling and former CNN and SABC anchor Tumi Makgabo quit as the LOC director of international affairs and communications.

Then just when the LOC couldn’t get any more attention, Khoza reacted to the reports of strife within his committee by shocking journalists when he repeatedly used the “k” word.

“I’m going to use a strong word and the media will forgive me for this, but people must stop thinking like ‘kaffirs’,”
he said.

Khoza later apologized but justified his comments saying the LOC worked hard to host this world-class event, “and now we want to destroy it.”

Not the smartest of moves Mr Khoza.

Security

Ah yes, security. According to national statistics, the crime rate in South Africa has dropped, yet citizens are still fearing for their safety. And who can blame then when actuality programmes are constantly exposing corruption and inefficient officials and officers, the same people we entrust our lives to and certainly not a good endorsement to the millions of tourists visiting our shores.

So with R600-million begin allocated to the South African Police Service, mostly to purchase equipment ranging from light aircraft to retractable fencing, tourists, I mean spectators of football local or abroad, will watch the game, travel safely to their respective lodging and sightsee to their hearts delight, without a care in the world. At least that’s the plan.

Where are Super Heroes when you really need them?

Transport

In 2006, President Thabo Mbeki allocated an additional R3 billion to improve South Africa’s public transport system ahead of the 2010 World Cup with the process to improve rail transport and build new infrastructure already underway. I must say that hosting the tournament in Africa is a highlight but to alleviate the transport problem in our country in the long run, will be the cherry on the rainbow nation cake.

My advice is to learn from the best and who better than Germany who hosted one of FIFA’s most successful tournament’s in 2006. Under the helm of former national captain, Franz Beckenbauer, the Europeans ran a tight ship and the competition ran smoothly. Besides the theatrics of some players, the 2006 event showed the world how a tournament should be operated. So call Mr Beckenbauer and his team, fly him over here, put them up in the best hotels and sap all the information you can from this football legend. And while the LOC is at it, give the Korea/Japan delegation a ring too because the 2002 tournament was a breakthrough in technology. From state of the art stadiums to amazing advances in transport, they showed the world how it’s done.

So, here’s hoping, fingers crossed, that the LOC prove all critics, including me, wrong, and showcase the best tournament the world has ever seen. The success of the tournament will not only reflect South Africa but the pride of a continent. More pressure for LOC, ouch!!!

By Alison de Villiers

This article is from the fine folks at Football365.co.za - The home of the African football fan

The news that the taxpayer would stump up R2bn rand to construct new stadiums spread like the smell of fresh blood in a shark infested bay, and immediately the big BEE boys started circling. For those of you unaware of what BEE is, here’s an idiots guide. In theory BEE stands for Black Economic Empowerment, a noble concept designed to redress the imbalances caused by South Africa’s ignoble past. In practice however it boils down to this: If you have a friend in government, are connected to the ANC in some way or have the means of blackmailing a government minister, you are going to make a shitload of money without lifting a finger.

I’ll give you an example of how BEE works that’s not football related. In the Eastern Cape the provincial government’s health department recently awarded the contract to do the laundry for five large hospitals to the cousin of one of the board members who made the decision. This contract was worth R4.3million. Not a bad spot of business except for the fact that businessman Mthunzi Deliwe, who won the contract, did not own a single washing machine.

When a local newspaper went to inspect they found that he’d hired a bunch of local woman to handwash the bloody, disease riddled and germ infected laundry by hand, in cold water and without detergent. Needless to say this is no good as they were getting through about 100kgs of washing a day when they needed to wash 4 tons. Also, cold water does not sterilise anything.

Now back to the 2010 stadiums. There was an amazing amount of secrecy around the awarding of tenders to build these particular examples of that majestic African animal – the White Elephant. One thing was certain though, a few very rich government cronies were about to get even richer.

What worries me is the fact that we just might end up with stadiums where some ’shortcuts’ have been taken. Like not using cement and just balancing the bricks on each other.

And it wasn’t long before rumours of corruption and illegalities were rife and the government quietly released the news that the initial R2bn estimate was a touch low. The project would cost R9bn. What? That’s my tax money they’re happily pissing away on stadiums that are unnecessary to begin with. And this in a country where at least a quarter of the population don’t have adequate housing and as many as 40% are unemployed. It would be funny in a proto Orwellian way if it wasn’t quite so tragic.

“But it will generate so much money for the country,” we were told. I’ve yet to see any of this. Tourism is cited as the main beneficiary but, as a resident of Cape Town who has to fight his way through an undulating sea of blubbery European tourists snapping at their sunburnt wives every day of my life, more tourists is the very last thing I want.

But alas, it is far too late to moan and like the rest of the country I’ll just have to deal with rising property prices and the fact that I’ll have to sell a kidney every time I feel like drinking a beer in a bar somewhere.

What worries me these days is the fact that, with the World Cup less than two years away, it doesn’t look like anything’s being done. Sure the stadiums are coming along nicely but what about the other infrastructure investments we were promised. The trains, buses, trams, hovercrafts and teleporters to get the tourists and their fat wallets from point A to point B? I may not be an engineer but I know it takes more than 12 months to build a fully functioning public transport system.

What about the electricity shortage? Sure the stadiums will have generators but not everybody is going to be at the games. I can just imagine the brouhaha when people across the nation are gathered around television sets in bars and homes across the country for the inevitable penalty shootout only for the power to go out. Oh joy.

I won’t even mention the crime situation. OK I will. When the muggings, rapes and murders of football fans from around the world start reaching double figures even the most proficient government spin-doctor is going to find it difficult to take the traditional approach of: “Crime problem? What crime problem?”.

As a South African I fear that the World Cup will be a major embarrassment for my nation and a setback of gigantic proportions for the African continent as a whole. As a football journalist with an international media company on the other hand, I’ll get to go to as many games as I want for free. You read that correctly, free!

So I say what the hell, bring on 2010.

By Justin Zehmke

This article is from the fine folks at Football365.co.za – The home of the African football fan

Filling Carlos Alberto Parreira’s shoes will be a tough task. The man has lifted a World Cup and the press just love using the ‘world cup winning mentor’ description (it has a nice ring to it). And they love to hate the new guy, the international rookie, the guy who is most noted for saving Vasco da Gama from relegation (and that doesn’t sound too catchy).

The powers-that-be will be gunning for a scapegoat should Bafana Bafana fail in their upcoming quest to qualify for the African Nations Cup in Angola and I can guarantee every defeat before the World Cup will be labelled as a disaster.

And unfortunately, Santana set himself up for the tongue-lashings. “Once I get to your country I want to work before I go around doing press conferences. Then the people can judge me, once they’ve seen what I can do.”

While he can be assured there will be a plethora of people who will be happy to dissect the faults of what he can’t do, there will be many more who will judge him on criteria that are totally irrelevant to football.

Clive Barker is one such judge. Santana has not officially began his Bafana tenure, (he starts on May 12), but the Amazulu boss has already predicted the worst.

“That (Santana’s appointment) was not a good decision for our football.” And why was it not a good decision according to Mr.. Barker? Purely because of the 59-year-old’s nationality.

“That was so unfair on our local coaches. The hard part for local coaches is that the president of SAFA is a South African and the players are also South African. But their coach isn’t,” continued Barker.

As the most successful coach in South African football history, Barker may feel he has the right to question Santana’s appointment.

But he should know better. The foreigner versus local debate is getting old, boring and it smacks of Makhenkesi Stofile’s ridiculous plan to nationalise Bafana. Furthermore, the last thing the country needs is to find yet another coach prior to the World Cup.

And overtly biting the hand that will feed the football nation is sure to deliver such a catastrophe.

He is Brazilian – well anyone who has heard of the beautiful game will tell you a Brazilian is not such a bad thing.

He is defence minded – again, not all bad. Look at Jose Mourniho’s record-breaking Chelsea team and success is what you will see.

And everyone is banging on about the fact that the Flamengo boss cannot speak English – well half the Bafana squad doesn’t either and neither could Parreira in the beginning.

The problem is Parreira arrived with a weight of expectation. Naive football fans believed if he had won the World Cup once (with a pretty impressive Brazil team – mind you), he could do it again and bring football success home.

The difference with Santana is the media expects him to fail. Most local coaches expect him to fail. And painfully most supporters expect the same…

However, being the underdog is not such a bad thing as Greece’s EURO 2004 side or the Senegal side that toppled France in the 2006 World Cup will tell you.

Santana needs to adequately silence the critics (that should solve some of the language barrier issues) and attain some measure of success on home soil.

I, for one am hoping that the man is as talented as his namesake, Carlos Santana, the guy his new boss Raymond Hack keeps getting him confused with.

The truth is that the structure Santana will head up, is the same one Parreira commanded. There is still good old Pitso Mosimane to help him find his way and as Mr. Hack said: “Carlos will put him in the picture and fill him in on what is around the corner.”

As the old adage goes – be happy with what you have – and the Rio de Janeiro-born man is what we have been given.

721 days. There’s no time to be bitter or nag. Let’s just get on with it!

Melissa Reddy

This article is from www.football365.co.za, the voice of the African football fan.

For once it had seemed as if the usually criminally inept SAFA had got it right and appointed the perfect man for the job. Parreira was professional, intelligent and brought with him a vast amount of experience. Even though the results looked dire at first, it was clear that Parreira was working according to a plan and not just casting his bread on the water like so may of his headless-chicken predecessors.

When Bafana Bafana beat Paraguay with style and aplomb last month a collective sigh of relief could be heard among the country’s football cognoscenti. We’d known all along that he’d get things right. There was purpose and style coupled with a hitherto unimagined intelligence to the team’s play.

They actually looked like they’d been coached and that they wanted to be there. South Africans have almost forgotten what that’s like.

The dream of doing well at the 2010 World Cup seemed about to be realised. No one was ever stupid enough to believe we’d be in a position to win it, but the hope that we’d emerge from the tournament with some honour intact and the groundwork for a successful national side well and truly laid no longer seemed like the ravings of a lunatic.

But even then there were warning signs. Who can forget this quote from Butana Komphela, who chairs the government portfolio committee on sport and recreation: “Let’s not beat about the bush: there is no team in South Africa”

“Our people are going to be clapping for other teams.

“I pity Parreira because he is going to fail. We are happy with the 2010 progress; the only thing we are not happy about is the team.”

What a vote of confidence.

Now it’s over. While it would take a truly heartless bastard to begrudge Parreira his stated reasons for quitting – he wishes to be with his ailing wife and young grandchildren – those of us with even a passing knowledge of SAFA are already casting about for the REAL reasons behind his decision.

After all, with the salary he’s being paid it would be extremely easy for Parreira to have his wife move to South Africa. He can’t even cite medical reasons as South Africa has some of the best facilities in the world, presuming you can afford to pay for them.

His wife’s illness is also not a recent development, in fact she had already been ill when he accepted the position.

Parreira has been in football for a very long time and has never been a quitter. We can only assume that, like so many times before, SAFA are behind his decision.

Whether it is through incompetence, interference or just their general uselessness, I expect rumours to start filtering out soon as to the real reasons behind Mr Parreira’s decision.

If it comes to light that SAFA are once again to blame for making our country and its football team a laughing stock when we had finally been offered a glimpse of redemption, it will become imperative that both fans and the government need to turn on the organisation like a pack of starving dogs.

It now seems likely that Brazilian unknown Joel Santana will replace Parreira, although SAFA have swiftly moved to squash these rumours. If true it would be a very strange decision indeed as Santana has never coached a national team and, aside from short spells in Saudi Arabia and Japan, has only ever worked in Brazil.

I suspect we’re in for a bumpy ride and the light at the end of the tunnel is most likely an approaching train. Still, the dream was fun while it lasted.

Justin Zehmke

This article is from www.football365.co.za, the voice of the African football fan.

Some people are saying that FIFA might bring in their own administrative team to take over from our clowns over here.

I’m all for whatever it takes to ensure that the WC stays here so whatever they feel is best works for me.

In good news, the power crisis seems like it’s over for now.

Not sure how or why, but the load shedding just stopped.

In our budget speech as well, the finance minister is giving Eskom 60 billion rand to get their act together, so let’s hope power cuts are a thing of the past.

Hi all (again).

It’s been a while since we were knocked out of the AFCON, but hey, life happens.

If anyone knows where Andreas is, please can you call his family on +27 87 567 1169 and let them know.

But I digress.

Anyway.

I’m not going to do post match analysis etc. Hopefully Andreas will come out of hibernation soon.

(It’s called passing the buck, something us South African’s are very adept at).

I am pleased with our performances in the AFCON. Obviously not the result, but that’s life.

In truth, it was one half of football that cost us qualification (The first half against Tunisia).

Other than that, we did well.

I just can’t help but think maybe things would’ve been different if Benni came along though, but that’s why CAP earns more than the president.

There is no real news to report, except that the power problems are subsiding which is good.

As something important happens, I will be sure to post.

Bafana Bafana gained a point AND scored a goal at the African Nations Cup Finals!

Right, when the dust has settled and we reflect it must be stated that we only gained a solitary point from this encounter, but we have to delve back a lot further to see why this point means so much.

In recent years we, the Bafana-loving supporters, have been forced to watch aimless, pointless, passionless and boring football. How that all changed last night!

I cannot remember the last time South Africa played with such passion, fight and determination. We played like a team, like a group and we meant business! We bossed the game for large spells of the match and I believe we were desperately unlucky not to claim victory.

Angola opened the scoring, through Manucho, but completely against the run of play, this after Modise had stung the palms of Lama with a ferocious long-range strike. The goal seemed to knock the wind out of Bafana and going into half-time Angola had begun to dominate. After the break it was all South Africa as Bafana went in search of the important equaliser. CAP brought Lerato Chabangu and Terror Fanteni on to replace Surprise Moriri and Siphiwe Tshabalala, and the move paid dividends.

We created chances and looked particularly useful from set-pieces. Chances came and went, Mhlongo blazed wide from a header following good work from Morris. Fanteni tested Lama again from long range. It looked like Bafana’s brave efforts would go unrewarded when substitute Elrio van Heerden scored with a wonderful strike from distance that gave Bafana a deserved point.

Now, South Africa head into Sunday’s encounter with Tunisia with renewed hope and vigour knowing that a victory against the Northern Africans could almost put one foot into the quarter-finals.

Rowen Fernandez has started training and is probably going to make the starting eleven against Tunisia. I believe that CAP learnt some valuable lessons against Angola and I am predicting that he starts with both Elrio van Heerden and Terror Fanteni at the expense of Tshabalala and Moriri.

Viva Bafana! The Nation expects!

CAP (Carlos Alberto Perreira) has bemoaned SA’s luck and claims we deserved all three points. I think he was watching the game with Green and Gold tinted glasses firmly fixed to his head.

I’d say that a draw was a fair result and it could’ve gone either way although we did have a goal disallowed as well. So maybe CAP is onto something.

We started brightly but the goal took it out of us and we improved in the second half.

Plus Van Heerden scored a peach.

CAP also said that we should give the other teams a run if we play the way we did. I agree. The group is finely balanced, and this SA performance was miles better than the garbage we were used to pre CAP.

Good signs.

Andreas will post soon, as soon as his part of SA has lights again (thanks Eskom).

So then, let us summarise the last few days. We managed to beat Botswana 2-1. Admittedly we didn’t play as well as we did against Mozambique but we kept the sequence of wins going and I’m sure that will do wonders for morale going in to the match against Angola.

With regards to the composition of the team it was pretty much the same. Moeneeb Josephs was drafted into the team at the expense of the inured Fernandez and Ajax Cape Town left-back Brett Evans started in place of Tsepho Masilela.

We controlled much of the first half and deservedly went into the break leading 1-0 courtesy of a deflected shot from right-back Bryce Moon. Into the second half Botswana levelled completely against the run of play after which Sibusiso Zuma scored the winner from close range. Botswana had two men sent off late in the game for reckless challenges, one of which injured captain Aaron Mokoena who was replaced by Golden Arrows defensive midfielder Kagiso Dikgacoi. There were also second half run outs for Lerato Chabangu, Elrio van Heerden and Terror Fanteni.

I guess it doesn’t bode well that the likes of Lance Davids, Tumelo Nhlapo, Excellent Walaza and Bevan Fransman haven’t been given a run yet but football is a squad game and you never know what might happen when the tournament kicks off for Bafana Bafana.

Which brings me to the match preview against Angola, we better win!

Right, everybody has been telling me that we’re going to lose. I refuse to listen. I reckon that we’ve got a great chance of surprising Angola in the opening game. Yes, Angola qualified for the last World Cup. Yes, Angola qualified with ease for the Africa Cup of Nations. Yes, they’re going into this game as favourites. Yet, I still sense that we can get something out this game.

On the injury front we have Rowen Fernandez sitting this one out with minor finger fractures. He should be fine for the next game but Parreira has said that if Josephs plays well he might not be dropped for the rest of the tournament. This has come as a massive blow to Fernandez who went into the tournament as clear first-choice.

Aaron Mokoena and Tsepho Masilela have both shaken off slight knocks and will both be fit to start. I feel that our progress in this tournament will largely be determined by the steely resolve of Aaron Mokoena in the holding role. If the defensive unit can hold firm, anything can happen!

Angolan danger-men include Flavio and Manucho, who has recently signed for Manchester United so he might be worth having a look at!

Probable Line-up:

Josephs, Moon, Masilela, Mhlongo, Morris, Mokoena, Pienaar, Modise, Moriri, Zuma, Tshabalala

With all the latest happening here in South Africa of which Naeem has been kind enough to share with you all, the least Bafana can give us is a glimmer of light. Pun intended.

C’mon boys! Make us proud…