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If you an African,
then you have to be proud of what Danny Jordaan and his team have done.
Eight years of painstaking work, of toil and slaving, finally came to
an end two days ago when the First World Cup on African soil kicked off.

It was a great
moment for me seeing the tournament finally begin, despite the cynicism
of a rabidly anti-South African Western media, which waged an
unremitting war against the organisers through skewed publications,
which tended to infer that South Africa could not guarantee the
security of participants as well as visitors to the tournament.

I must commend FIFA
for remaining committed to the project; for resisting subtle and overt
blackmail of Western media. The faith reposed in not only Jordaan and
his team but also in the ability of the South African nation to rise to
the challenge of hosting such a global event, has been repaid. It is
early days yet in the tournament but no one can fail to applaud the
organisation that went into the opening ceremony.

Few opening
ceremonies at previous tournaments can match up to it in terms of
colour and panache. Besides the ceremony, the opening game of the
tournament gave off a whiff of the quality of football to expect at the
tournament. The young South African players and an equally youthful
Mexican side certainly gave football fans that thronged the Soccer City
Stadium much to cheer.

As is often said,
the die is cast and there is no going back for the hosts. In the coming
days, there are going to be challenges to be faced.

The doubters in the
West, whose noses have been rubbed in the dirt by the near flawless
take off of the tournament, will be scouring the different match venues
in search of tales that would reinforce their belief that South Africa
does not have the capacity to ‘swing’ it.

Given the magnitude
of the tournament and the sheer volume of individuals that have arrived
South Africa, there are bound to be developments that may appear
unsavoury but they should not detract from the quality of the
tournament. After all, the bombing at the Centennial Park during the
1996 Atlanta Olympic Games did not dampen the spirits of participants
and spectators alike. The event went on in full swing. Even in the more
extreme case of the Munich 1972 Olympics where terrorists kidnapped and
later killed 11 Israeli athletes, international outcry at the dastardly
act did not lead to the cancellation of the games even when some
countries pulled out.

Weighing in for Nigeria

One of the amazing
things about this tournament is the level of mobilisation of South
Africans by the Jordaan committee. Before the opening day of the
tournament, the fever around Johannesburg and other key cities in the
country was contagious. In every city, people spilled out onto the
streets in the yellow and green colours of the Bafana Bafana, their
national team. It was as pleasing to the eye as it was thought
provoking.

Here in Nigeria,
support for our own Super Eagles has not been as solid as would have
been be expected. In place of patriotic fervour has been mounting
cynicism. A good many Nigerians simply do not believe the Eagles have
it in them to excel at the tournament. While they cannot be blamed
given the team’s recent history, it still does not prevent them from
wishing the team well. Football is played over 90 minutes and sometimes
it does not just come down to talent for a team to win. Sheer grit and
tactical ingenuity on the part of a coach have on occasion propelled
nondescript teams to achieve great things. Greece did it at the 2004
European Championship where they whipped the continent’s top teams to
become champions. Two years before that feat, Korea stunned the world
with an excellent run at the 2002 World Cup, which took them to the
semi-final of the tournament.

Our Eagles may not
have had the best of preparations, no thanks to an incompetent football
federation, which frittered away valuable time and thus left the squad
with little time to play quality friendly matches, still, we have the
players that can turn a game round.

All said, even if
they do not fire on all cylinders in South Africa, they are our flesh
and blood and so we must line up behind them. Let us learn from the
South Africans.