CAPE TOWN, South Africa “”mdash; I spent the World Cup opener between South Africa and Mexico standing outside a fully packed pub on the waterfront with my face pressed against the glass, watching the game through a window.
I couldn’t hear the referee’s calls, and I couldn’t see all the plays through my partially obstructed view. But for 90 minutes I could feel the excitement of an underdog and the lofty expectations that come with admission to the greatest sporting event in the world.
Cape Town seems to have fewer sports bars and flat-screen TVs than the average American suburb, and the “viewing areas” with large projectors set up around the city were so congested with fans that people started climbing trees and lampposts to catch even a fractured view of the game.
The first goal sent the audience into a frenzy. South Africa had been outplayed the entire match but somehow managed to strike first. The crowd remained electrified until Mexico came back with what seemed like an inevitable goal by Rafael Marquez in the 79th minute.
Then a comment rang out that took me by surprise.
A young man watching from a few feet behind me, frustrated that his team had let a 1-0 lead slip away, yelled at the screen to his team hundreds of miles away in Johannesburg, “Come on! You’re letting us down!”
It was a striking criticism of a group that was allowed to compete solely because it represented the host nation. Bafana Bafana, as the South African national team is commonly called, came into the tournament No. 83 in the world and found itself against No. 17 Mexico.
That never seemed to matter. During my entire time studying abroad, locals have held their players to almost unattainable aspirations.
A waitress told me that she thought the team should make it at least to the semifinals, and South African President Jacob Zuma said multiple times that he expected them to reach the finals. Before even a single match had been played, there were newspapers displaying the full-page headline, “Four ways Bafana can win.”
It seemed so wildly ridiculous to an outsider that it eventually became a joke between myself and my roommate: “South Africans actually think they can win?”
The simple answer is yes. The belief is what drives the dancing, the outlandish costumes and the celebrations. It’s what drives the constant buzz of the vuvuzela ““ a sound even worse when it comes at 4 a.m. like a bestial mating call from some wounded animal.
If the odds of South Africa advancing ““ now even more difficult after a 3-0 loss to Uruguay ““ seem unrealistic, then it should be considered on equal footing with the expectations people believe the tournament could have on the country.
Some have predicted that the World Cup could erode the de facto segregation in South African sports ““ soccer as a predominantly black-supported sport and rugby as predominantly white ““ and help bridge the country’s racial divide. A South African went as far as to tell me that he believed the games could constitute the second fall of apartheid.
But during the frenzy and anticipation, it’s hard to discount any feat of the imagination. Was it any less ridiculous to think that Switzerland could defeat Spain, that Germany could lose to Serbia or that the U.S. could find itself struggling to survive against the smallest country in the tournament, Slovenia?
The high expectations create the madness and allow people to believe in something great; nothing seems beyond reach.
The mood of the country reflects that, from local fans and those from all over the world. It’s far greater than any trophy a country could hope to win (well, almost).
Standing outside a bar, listening to the same chants and songs that supported the country during decades of segregation, it doesn’t seem so crazy to me that South Africa may actually achieve its goal.
After all, I don’t think it’s going to let down its fans.