The opening day of the World Cup can be the most frustrating days of your life! “Can we just get started now, please?”
The hour-long opening ceremony was broadcast live in more than 215 countries worldwide at 1pm – despite desperate pleas from people who felt it would spoil their lunch, with an expected global audience of 500 million. Some 85,000 of those will be at Soccer City to watch the event live. Thankfully the audience decided not to leave.
However, this is not the only ultimately pointless event to launch the World Cup in South Africa, as a three-hour live music concert took place at the 30,000-capacity Orlando Stadium last night (10th June). The event featured a cast of international stars shamefully looking to increase CD sales - including Colombian bum-wiggler Shakira, the Black Eyed Peas and Alicia “I’m up the duff” Keys. The concert also conveniently featured some home-grown African stars like Amadou & Mariam and Hugh Masekela to give the fans an opportunity for toilet breaks etc.
The pinnacle of frustration was reached when R Kelly appeared at 1:35pm in a bizarre (but typical for R Kelly) attempt at entertainment before kick-off. He was wearing a spangly jacket. This horrible combination of sight and sound provided millions of football fans with an excellent opportunity to save some electricity by turning off their televisions. We did. The Energy Saving Trust and Greenpeace are yet to comment, but we suspect they were absolutely delighted.
FINALLY! Thank God for that. The football kicked off at the traditional time of 3pm (or 4pm if you’re in South Africa) – with the glamour tie of South Africa and Mexico taking centre stage. The football world expected the traditional affair from an opening game: passion, skills, entertainment, and big star names! Unfortunately the game featured South Africa and Mexico.
Still, despite nobody knowing anyone who was playing – as we can only assume that the commentators weren’t actually making the names up as they went along – but nobody cared. Everyone was just so happy to see an actual game of football being played, that it didn’t seem to matter that ridiculously silly names like Itumeleng Khune and goal-hero Siphiwe Tshabalala were (probably) being expertly pronounced by ITV’s vocal wizard Peter Drury and his super-strength tongue!
The 1-1 draw may have stopped the street parties though. Damn those burrito-chomping, party-pooping, moustache wearing Mexicans! The other Group A teams battle it out later, as France surpisingly plan to play against Uruguay by using their FEET. Saturday sees the moment we have all been waiting for...COME ON ENGLAND! We also believe that Group B teams also kick-off their group, but come on, do we really care about that?
Our next blog will hopefully not feature any swear words. *Crosses his fingers*
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