Soccer, Football, FIFA World Cup, 2010, South Africa, Bafana Bafana

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Field of Dreams

As South Africa’s home side, Bafana Bafana (“The Boys”) has yet to truly earn its spurs in the international arena, soccer is perhaps less readily associated with the country than sports such as cricket and rugby, where we have shone in the past. But in terms of sheer numbers of both players and followers, it has long been a hands-down winner for the unofficial title of our national sport.

And with Cape Town’s successful bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa will soon have a chance to show the globe’s most rabid footy-fans that we know a thing or two about football… or, at the very least, that we know how to throw a good party.

Like art, music, literature, theatre, and every other conceivable form of cultural expression in this country, South African sport has historically been inseparable from South African politics, every official match bearing blunt testimony to the racial divisions enforced by the government of the time.

To play, and to fight to be allowed to play, to be denied funding, facilities, and the chance to fulfill their potential, and to play anyway  -  this was the fate of non-white athletes under National Party rule. Pursuing one’s passion was in itself a kind of resistance. And in no sport was the injustice more evident – or more stinging - than in soccer; so beloved by all Africans, and so iconically celebrated as the people’s game in every other part of the world.

Today at last ‘the beautiful game’ unites and divides its legions of fans across only one line - the traditional and rightful line of My Team versus Yours. With the challenges of the World Cup looming ever nearer, soccer in South Africa has once again become something more than just a game: It is a carrier for a dream.