South Africa vs. Australia, Nigeria and Scotland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, so all of my competive-big-sister-used-to-think-I’d-be-the-first-woman-in-the-NBA sides are coming out.  Exploding out, really.  I’m all about street soccer.  Our boys are doing incredibly well–they were practically a new team today.  They arrived on the court this morning ready to play a tough game against Australia, who had a serious home team advantage. The crowds were full of Australians and Australia fans and South Africa wasn’t playing around.  They were using their teammates well, playing a clean game with a lot of slick passes and scores and won 7-3.  It was a great victory.  I was “that girl” screaming from the sidelines with all of the neutral journalists.   I gotta support!

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Our second game today was a lot harder.  Nigeria is a tough team with a solid reputation.  For almost the entire first half, neither team could score.  Both sides played serious defense and have fantastic goal keepers.  Nigeria scored the first point followed quickly by South Africa and so the rest of the game went.  Eventually, Nigeria got a two point lead and the rest of the game was spent catching up a point, losing a point and, in the last seconds of the game, Nigeria scored again.  South Africa lost with a final score of 10-7 in favor of Nigeria.  They put in an incredible fight, however, and can hold their heads high knowing they fought a very good team well.

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Scotland’s team are the reigning champs from last year.  All of the teams we played against today are powerhouses.  Again, South Africa put in a good fight but the guys spoke about how tired they were by the end of the day and that they didn’t feel good about their final game.  We lost 9-4, in the end.  Also, Scotland’s team has several more players than South Africa’s team.  Especially without Martin, South Africa has only six guys to rotate with and Rasta has to play keeper non stop.  He was particularly exhausted by the end of the day.  Again, he did an excellent job all day but felt that by the third match, his stamina was down.

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We all grabbed dinner together at a local burger joint and it was great to see the guys relaxing and having a good time.  The shared some pretty funny stories of things they’ve experienced over the last few days, their perspectives of women from different countries, and also were honest that they’ve had a hard time building relationships with players from certain African nations due to the xenophobia and violence that went on in South Africa last year.  The team feels that the players from Zimbabwe and Malawi, in particular, do not trust them and are not as open to becoming friends as some of the other teams are.  Yet it sounds like they’ve had some good conversations with players from other countries, particularly Brazil, swapping stories of what life is like in their respective homes, what the landscapes are like, as well as what gang life is like in various communities.  I think it has been an eye opening experience for them, overall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tomorrow is another round of games marking which teams will make it into the finals.  Wish our guys luck!