Driving around Johannesburg, you can't help but notice the amount of flags outside of shops, restaurants, even homes — typical adornments for a city hosting the World Cup. Street corners are lined with vendors trying to cash in on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
What's unusual is the amount of foreign flags being sold before the tourists arrive, and how many we see wedged between car windows. It seems that every South African wants to identify with an alternate national heritage. "I'm English," or "I'm Portuguese" are proud claims we hear every day. It's as if these flags represent a distrust in Bafana Bafana (the South African national team), and a safety net in case they are ousted in the the first round.
Unfortunately, the proudest South Africans and most ardent Bafana supporters won't be anywhere near Soccer City. In fact they wouldn't even be able to watch it on TV if it weren't for the Education Department rescheduling their final exams. The youth of the Rainbow Nation, who are colorblind and oblivious to the institutionalized disparities of previous generations, are the only one's bold enough to predict: "Mexico, you're in trouble!"
Whether we're outdoors, indoors, in townships or suburbs, it's impossible to shoot a scene without a football rolling across the background. There is no doubt that this country is football mad. But is it Bafana Bafana mad?
Only the stadium construction workers and kids with no foreign lineage to fall back on believe they can make it through the group stages. Perhaps it is naive confidence, but confidence is 90 percent of success. And you can't fear what you don't know ... unless it involves vuvuzelas.
Gerardo Chapa is the producer of 20/10, a documentary about the 2010 World Cup. The movie's descriptor reads: "For a month this summer, for 90 minutes at a time, an inexplicable phenomenon will unite people of all ages, creeds and colors. Every four years, beggars and kings, whites and blacks, women and men gather to indulge in the revelry of this sensation. For the first time ever, the catalyst for this fever will take place in Africa."
Chapa is on the ground in South Africa as the world's biggest sport event looms. Throughout the World Cup, he's writing an exclusive, first-person account for CultureMap.
The future of South Africa is soccer mad.
