Here are some extracts from international stories about SA and the world cup:

Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times:
“South Africa’s World Cup was a four-week people’s festival — which saw the normally insular car-addicted middle classes abandoning their vehicles, walking, taking buses and trains, celebrating in the streets at night or visiting Soweto township for the first time in their lives.

Since Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation dream began to fade with the rise of corruption and persistent inequality, South Africa has become a navel-gazing, insecure nation.”

Financial Times:
“[Mandela's] was an appearance that lasted barely a few minutes, but it was enough to set the seal on South Africa’s four weeks at the centre of global attention during which the negative impressions of the country, such as crime levels and transport problems, were largely dispelled.”

Jonathan Clayton, The Times, London:
“The World Cup has been a bigger success than anyone dared hope. The country has witnessed an outpouring of nationalist fervour and pride.
On buses, trains, planes, or in packed stadiums, South Africans of all races and colours have stood alongside each other in a display of unity never before seen in this once deeply divided nation.
Fears that visitors would be victims of crime and poor organisation have proved to be misplaced.”

Celia W. Dugger, The New York Times:
“A fledgling democracy that has struggled to address its profound social ills proudly discovered it could deliver a mega-event that required years of careful investment and planning. A country whose politics have been damaged recently by bitter, racially tinged invective offered hundreds of thousands of visitors an affectionate welcome.

And a body politic fractured by race and inequality caught glimpses, perhaps as fleeting as the games themselves, of what it would mean to overcome those barriers.”

The Daily Mail:
“From Siphiwe Tshabalala’s wonder strike in opener against Mexico to the all-singing, all-dancing entrance of the players to each match – South Africa brought huge entertainment to this World Cup.”

Owen Gibson, The Guardian:
“Organisers have spoken at length about the “nation building” potential of the World Cup, and this was proved to be far more than empty rhetoric as South Africans came together in a national sense of near-hysteria.”

And then if you’re struggling with world cup withdrawal don’t worry, there are only 1,432 days until the next event kicks-off in Rio de Janeiro!

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