Africa Is a Country

football-is-a-country
football-is-a-country

SPORTS

It must be Africa

For the next month we'll be bombarded with commercials riffing of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. There'll be lots of "African" themes.

The Wedding

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsG49zXF8xk&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Driving in Soweto, film maker Dumisani Phakathi reflects on next month’s World Cup: [The World Cup] is like a wedding … You organize the wedding between you and your partner. The event is amazing, the photographs get taken. Everybody remembers the day. But the trick is about what happens after. What do you carry […]

Coco Cola and the "African Boy"

I’m a bit late with this, but I’ll post it anyway. (Look out for lots of posts about World Cup commercials on this site over the next few days.) Another one of the myriad of commercials made to order for Coco Cola to dominate soft drink consumption during next month’s World Cup.   This time […]

Bono did something right

You know we give Bono a lot of grief on this site, but in this commercial for ESPN’s coverage of the 2010 World Cup–bar a few disagreements here and there–he is on point. Did I just say that. Just in this case of course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXlBSlyU8xY * BTW, ESPN has put a lot of money into […]

South Africa. It's in South America

Apparently on a Chicago TV station. Let’s hope this a spoof. Otherwise it explains this kind of thing and the kinds of rubbish being reported about the 2010 World Cup. Remember it’s controversial and it is in South America, which is a country. The people are brown and they play soccer, right? Via Deadspin. — […]

Africa Represent

If the criteria is the number of African players each team had on the field, you need to root for Inter Milan in the 2010 UEFA Champions League Final.

Weekend Links

Things I have read quickly, seen or watched, listened to, been forwarded, did not really have the time to think about properly, here for your reading pleasure: * On Freedom Day, last Tuesday, South Africa’s government released this picture of the country’s president, Jacob Zuma, taking an Aids test. He tested negative. (The test was […]

Have another Coke and smile Roger Milla

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M3Q54rPjQw&w=480&h=295] Having stripped the Somalian singer K’Naan’s protest song, “Waving Flag” of any meaning, Coco Cola now sets about to trivialize African football history. As reported by Steve Bloomfield on his blog, Africa United, Coke’s new commercial, “History of Celebration,” reduces the legacy of Cameroon’s historical run in the 1990 tournament in Italy to striker […]

Africa’s World Cup

Binyavanga Wainaina and Teju Cole are among those on a panel discussing the historic 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa; the first time on the continent.

The Full-Back

I am still on my pre-World Cup binge. Brazil remains odds on favorites to win Africa’s first World Cup two months from now. BTW, it’s old news now but Brazil can also count on local support in South Africa: they’re South African fans’ favorite other team. Brazil play two group matches in Johannesburg–against North Korea […]

Chiskop

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUe83JKeXAI&w=480&h=295] In his book, “Murder in Amsterdam,” about the death of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, the writer Ian Buruma provides this description of Dutch football: “Proud of their superior skills, their multicultural makeup, the almost mocking manner of their free-flowing play, maddening the players of more prosaic teams, like Germany … […]

The Vuvuzela in the Room

Celebrating the World Cup does not mean we can’t ask hard questions . No, not that the annoying vuvuzelas are banned, but that thousands of informal traders will lose income because of Fifa-imposed “exclusion zones” around stadiums which permit only approved businesses, that street children are forcibly removed from Durban’s city centre, and in Cape […]