Sitting In A Hornet’s Nest

Kris Fernandes (kris@insidesoccer.ca)
is a Toronto based soccer & futsal writer for Inside Soccer Magazine. Deeply immersed in soccer fandom and culture, he has been actively involved in spreading the love of the beautiful game in a uniquely Canadian way for a decade through media coverage, administration and coaching. He covered the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany and the 2008 UEFA European Championships from Austria/Switzerland for both CBC Sports Online and ISM.

Straight up, that is how you kickoff a World Cup!

As expected, both, Mexican and South African fans launched the World Cup with some world class passion at Soccer City Stadium in Jo’Burg this afternoon.

And oh yeah, the teams themselves put on a pretty damn fine show too.

The festivities kicked off with the official opening ceremonies which featured a tremendously colourful exhibition of traditional African song and dance by artists from across the continent. Accompanied by the Soweto Spiritual Singers, American R&B star R. Kelly performed his track, “Sign of a Victory”, the official anthem of the World Cup. No word yet if he urinated on anyone (Google that if you don’t know).

With the Dutch, Brazilians, Germans, and sometimes the English, withstanding, you couldn’t really ask for a better set of fans than the ones from South Africa and Mexico. They are among the most colourful, jubilant, and vociferous around and made the match worth attending alone.

Always seemingly with a cerveza in hand, The Mexicans are often decked out in traditional ponchos, sombreros, luchador wrestling masks, and even Aztecan warrior headdress. The ‘people of the sun’ are absolutely relentless in their chanting and never miss an opportunity to yell ‘puto’ in unison at an opposing goalkeeper when taking a goalkick. They’re also credited with inventing the wave back in the 60′s and carried that well throughout this match and put it into 5th gear when Rafa Marquez equalized late in the game.

The host supporters on the other hand, tens upon tens of thousands of them, constantly and mightely blow their highly-potent creation: the vuvuzela. Essentially a long plastic horn that one puffs into, the vuzuzela is arguably the most dangerous weapon against South Africa’s opponents. Communication is nearly-impossible on the pitch when the fans want it so. You could see players yelling into one another’s ears and then see them shrug in frustraion as if they couldn’t hear what was said. As stated earlier, When Mexicans chant, they CHANT. But whenever they started up in the 2nd half the locals instantly drowned them out with a few toots of the horn.

PHOTO Stuart Gradon

One could barely hear themselves think as the sound is that deafening. The only true way to describe the experience is to imagine yourself inside of a hornets nest when the queen is in danger. Many in attendance (84,000+) actually wore ear plugs as studies have shown that hearing loss can arise from constant exposure
to the sound and it only crescendos whenever South Africa benefits from a call. If the stadium had a roof, the Bafana Bafana (‘The boys’) faithful would likely have blown it off into the chilly African sky when Tshabalala scored that beautiful goal.

The booming sound isn’t just limited to the stadium however. Frankly you can’t escape it. It’s in malls, on buses, and just when you think you’ve gotten away, it booms out from the middle of nowhere.

There is no alarm clock needed at our place as like a French farmer wakes up to a rooster, we have learned to expect the calls of the vuvuzela at 6:30am everyday.

With both both teams gaining a point Jo’Burg is going to seriously party hard tonight. Drinks will flow through the night and thank goodness there’s no work tomorrow for most, otherwise the inevitable hangovers may be pulsating as bad as my headache from the vuvuzela.

Tomorrow’s agenda includes driving across town to catch Argentina and Nigeria, should be a great game.