Day 9 27/6/2010 The Beginning Of The End

• Head off to Joburg at 1pm. Long drive to Pretoria - through 3 tolls.
• Google Maps is a shocker - it drives us to a very wrong location - Clayville! Drive through shantytowns and past warning signs of carjackingand hijacking whilst desperately searching for our accommodation. Every eye in Clayville is watching us. Consider whether we forgo accommodation and drive the 3.5 hours back to Nelspruit after the game at midnight. Finally, we drive 10km up the road to our accommodation at Ipe Tombe - heavy security, but gorgeous guest lodge in Midrand, about 20kms outside Joburg.
• Hurredly drive to Joburg at night, listening to Germany demolish England (hooray!). Joburg is massive, sprawling out in every direction, flat 360 degrees. Bypass city centre, but glance at FanFest, Melboure/Brisbane feel, Nike building lit up with Christiano Ronaldo projection.
• We need a special prepaid ticket for parking - 50 Rand, and we have to get that from somewhere else; not the parking lot. Bugger. Of course, says the parking attendant, we can work that out here. How much, Roy asks? 100 Rand later we are in the parking lot!
• 2km walk to Soccer City in the dark, hawkers of vuvuzelas and knick knacks along the way. Pick up an Argentinan flag which will look great on my back deck!
• Soccer City is the most breathtakingly goddamn beautiful stadium in the world! Designed to resemble the calabash, a traditional African cooking pot, the rusty brown metal filled with square window holes, light reflecting from the angles,gleaming in the Joburg night. Only the Sydney Opera House comes close to anything I have seen.
• Inside the stadium we have our one and only category 1 seats of our trip, opposite the coaches side, halfway between the goal and halfway line. Unbelievable stadium, enclosed, right on top of the field. The playing surface is actually sunken into the ground, so that the 2nd floor of the stadium is at ground level. If you know what I mean.
• As the Argentinian national anthem finishes, hundreds of streamers and confetti shower down on the pitch in blue and white. Le Albicelestes! Maradona and Messi get the loudest cheers during introductions, and a roar across the ground when Carlos Tevez is announced as starting.
• Mexico is a good team, but Argentina score the first goal. It is quite obviously offside; Carlos Tevez. The Mexicans are angry, remonstrating with the refs over the call. Melee continues at halftime.
• Argentinan fans are the most passionate, non-stop and crazy of all World Cup fans, although in all honesty I have never seen Cape Verde Islands or Luxemborg fans.
• 2-0 Argentina are all class, but Carlos Tevez scores the goal of the tournament, pirouhetting on the spot and driving the ball into the back of the net! Mexico get one back, but Argentina win 3-1.
• Soccer City is so cold, eskimos are sending me blankets! Outside the wind whips up and chills us to the bone. Never been so happy to get into the car and put on heater! Still, we are happy with Argentina's win and that warms us up! Go the Albicelestes against Germany!

D