Well, the Ivorians gave it their best shot. Needing to make up a virtually insurmountable goal differential of 9 on Portugal (which they had tied, remember) Cote d’Ivoire came out and dominated the game from the outset. They won comfortably, and had two goals disallowed that could have made things interesting. The African side was never in danger of not winning, but with Portugal managing to draw with Brazil (at 0-0) the Ivorians for the second World Cup in a row go home after being unable to conquer the Group of Death.
I think I have decided that I need to attend an Africa Cup of Nations tournament. In each of the games involving an African team, whether in person at the stadium or at a fan park, the spirit has been spectacular. The crowd was nearly unanimous in its support for Ivory Coast yesterday, though the vast bulk of those fans were South Africans. The only sign of North Korea support that I saw came in the form of hipster irony on the part of a group of four Americans who are a pretty good embodiment of why my country has such a lousy reputation overseas. But the Ivorians in the crowd were incredible. In one section there was a group of several dozen, maybe a couple hundred, who spent the entire match singing and dancing along with a ubiquitous drumbeat from several of their members. The rest of us seemed to draw energy from them. Each goal saw an eruption, but it simply was not enough, and Didier Drogba and company will go home again, disappointed but far from shamed. It seems clear to me that they are the best team going home before the knockout stages.
The postgame marked another example of chaotic transport nightmares. At some of the smaller stadiums this has been a real, serious, and ongoing problem. When there is no parking allowed at the stadium and no drop off from personal cars or taxis, the entire crowd is dependent upon the shuttle service. When that process breaks down, you get tens of thousands of angry, frustrated, cold and in some cases drunk people. I have long cautioned patience on these things, but when families with young children are forced to stand in a crush of humanity for two hours before any indication of progress is made, that’s a problem.
I stayed at a guesthouse on the fringes of Nelspruit. Nelspruit was at the epicenter of the Boer republics during the Anglo-Boer War and still serves as something of a center of Afrikanerdom. My hosts shared all of the characteristics that I love (and hate) about the Afrikaner “type.” Warm and embracing, committed to conviviality, full of good humor and more than willing to take the piss, generous and kind, hard working and down to earth. Of course there is also the casual racism tossed off with just enough jarring regularity to make the teeth grind. Of course even amidst these comments my hosts seemed legitimately to be rooting for the African teams and for the World Cup of a sport that is not their passion to succeed for the sake of the country.
