Footy tonight and footy past

I’m off to watch South Africa take on African Champions and second-tier Ebola carriers Nigeria at the Cape Town Stadium this evening. It’ll be my fourth time watching the national team and I have yet to see them win.
Or… er… draw, actually.

The first Bafana Bafana game I saw was seven years ago yesterday, as it happens: Zambia in an Afcon qualifier at Newlands. South Africa weren’t very good that day and Chris Katongo scored a hattrick in 11 minutes for Chipolopolo ruining the return of Benni McCarthy from international exile. It finished 1-3. It wasn’t great.

And then, because of the World Cup and the politics of SAFA, we didn’t see another Bafana game in Cape Town until after the World Cup. Then, we got to see them play the USA at the Cape Town Stadium in the Nelson Mandela Challenge in November 2010. South Africa weren’t very good that day, and lost to a second half goal from Juan Agudelo goal.

We shouldn’t forget the last time I saw them, either. 8th January last year, against a decidedly under-strength (read: “B-team”) Norway. South Africa weren’t very good that day and eventually lost a really, really boring game to Tarik Elyounoussi’s goal just before half time.

South Africa have won one first-class game at the Cape Town Stadium: a 2-0 win against the Central African Republic in March last year. I wasn’t there, but I was reliably informed that the Central African Republic weren’t very good that day. And yes, there were the CHAN games too, but those don’t really count.

So Bafana’s record is fairly unspectacular in Cape Town, and even more so when I’m watching them. New coach Shakes Mashaba has requested everyone to come out and support the team this evening, but if he knew my history with watching his side, he’d probably be less keen to see me there.

The stadium in Sudan was fully packed to capacity. I hope it will also be the case in Cape Town.

Well, no it won’t. I’m not sure what sort of crowd they’re expecting, but I am told that the lower tier has sold out and they’ve opened up the second tier for bookings. That would probably mean somewhere between about 25,000 and 30,000 tops.

I’ll try and snap a few photos this evening and put them on twitter (tonight) and Flickr (maybe tomorrow).

Cut & Paste Disappointment

With Mrs 6000 getting up early for Colin each and every morning, I do the late shift. The late shift actually isn’t too bad – all it involves is not putting the dog to bed too early, because then the dog wakes up too early. Hardly revolutionary stuff. It doesn’t always work, and in fact last night it didn’t work at all and so we’re all a bit knackered this morning.

But that’s not the point of this post.

I was actually quite looking forward to yesterday evening’s late shift, because in an effort to keep me awake, I had pre-determined that I would watch England’s European Championship qualifier against Switzerland. I’m aware that if it was to be anything like England’s friendly against Norway last week, I may have struggled to combat the extreme soporific forces, but I had high hopes and they were only to be dashed by SuperSport, and not by another dull England performance. Because SuperSport weren’t showing it.

Previously, I would have raged a bit and then wondered what was going on and then raged further, more at frustration of not knowing why it wasn’t on, rather than the actual fact that it wasn’t on. But these days, we have twitter, and a quick look at SuperSport’s timeline told me that I wasn’t the only one wondering why we were missing out:

ss

And let’s not be all South Africa-centric here – this is for the whole of Africa, including the footballing hubs of Nigeria and other countries in Africa that like to watch football. Beeg audience.
So – are they trying to get the rights? Will they get the rights? Er…

Hmm.

Once this week’s matches are over with, we have about 4 weeks before the next international break, which will feature more European Championship qualifiers, including England against THE MIGHTY San Marino. Hopefully, SuperSport will have sorted out this rights issue before then: after all, we’re paying quite a lot of money to be able to watch these sorts of things (and let’s face it, there’s not a huge amount of other stuff on DSTV that’s worth the subscription).

Meanwhile, Afcon qualification takes over on Wednesday evening. And although SuperSport do have the rights for that, I’m going to to go an watch Bafana Bafana v Nigeria at the Cape Town Stadium, simply because I can.

Pain

So many plans for blog posts and they’ve all been shelved because I played football today for the first time in 18 months (remember this?). The football was fun, and I think I did ok, considering the length of time it had been since I last played. That’s not what’s stopping me from sitting and blogging. It’s more my body’s reaction to that football which is causing the problem.

Oh my. The pain. Everything hurts. Everything.
I may have over exerted myself “a little”.

The good thing is that it will probably take no more than a week to get over this pain and stiffness. And then I can go and do it all over again. 😀

End of season rumination

It’s that time of the football season when everyone starts wondering about next season (with the mild irritant of the World Cup not withstanding). Not this chap, of course. He’s upset because he doesn’t like something that a lot of other people do like and he’s comparing it to archaeology because that’s also something that over a quarter of the World’s population enjoy on a weekly basis, so it’s totes a completely valid comparison. I would say that I’m sorry that he doesn’t like football, but that would be lying because I actually don’t give a toss that he doesn’t like football.

MOAR FOOTBALL PLEASE!

And so to the real subject of this post, which is not whiny people who choose their friends poorly and can’t use an iPod or change a radio channel, but… FOOTBALL!

The way Sheffield United finished off this season was little short of spectacular, which was great because we (easily) avoided the ignominy of relegation and we almost (almost) even made the playoffs. This, however, is not so good, because it has raised expectations ahead of next season and left us thinking that we are favourites to win the league and be promoted, just like we were this season, when we nearly got relegated. Even I am getting my hopes up and I’m notoriously boring and rational. It’s stoopid.

Those hopes and dreams can be easily shattered. Look at Liverpool. So near, and yet so far. The Tall Accountant always believed that they could go all the way and win it, but it just wasn’t to be.
We’ve all done it: “We could have won the league, if only… if only… if only…”

Well, for the TA’s delight and delectation, here it is! The definitive way that Liverpool could have won the league: If Only Goals Scored By English Players Counted:

livwin2

Yep. Even with Luis’ fantastic contribution, Liverpool would have won the league. Man U would have done ok, Arsenal would have been nowhere and Champions Manchester City would have been relegated as joint lowest scorers with Newcastle – just 4 goals each. Half of Norwich’s goals were scored by English players, but then they only got 28 in the real world. Cardiff did surprising well, with 70% of their goals being scored by English players, despite them not being English club. Madness, ne?

I’d love to work this out for Sheffield United (who have 19/32 English players in their squad), but given that it (cleverly) takes into account the nationality of the players scoring against us as well, it’s just too complicated. Four of our top five scorers were English, but then… do you count own goals too? And if so, only by English players?

Let’s just assume we’d have won the league as well. Just like we’re going to next season.
Right?