Posts Tagged ‘World Cup 2010’

After some pictures and our written review of the World Cup 2010 game between Brazil and Portugal in Durban, we wanted to make sure the videos were posted as normal.  We had a delay as we immediately drove to Rustenburg for USA v Ghana and couldn’t find the required Internet bandwidth until now.

Intro Part 1 with Chris

Intro Part 2 with Carl (See Flyboytyler Flickr feed for references made, mainly this photo)

Outro with Andy

We had the great pleasure of visiting Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban one more time.  Unfortunately, it was a waste of 96 minutes of our life watching Brazil and Portugal play. They were evenly matched and were not trying to get anyone hurt before they moved on to the final 16.

The rest of the time there was an incredible experience with over 61k in attendance.  The crowds were well split between the two teams showing excellent support for both.  At the end of the game we even saw fans changing shirts and jerseys from both sides.  A true showing of community.  This was the loudest game we have been to so far at any stadium.

Security was at it’s maximum with helicopter gun ships, crowd control SWAT teams in full gear and more officers than we have seen.  Yet there was not a single issue we saw until the large boo at the end from the disappointed fans.

We have a large amount of pictures uploaded to the Flickr group for this event.  Please head over to the Flickr VVorldcup photo group.

The stadium into videos will be up shortly (as uploading speed allows) for your review.  You can always check TheVVorldCip YouTube channel direct at any time.

This time Carl does our stadium intro as we get to see an awesome game with Japan winning.  The stadium itself was not as full as one would have hoped with the placement of a team in a bracket on the line.

But the Japan fans came out in full force.  Carl managed to capture some incredible game pictures as well as fan pictures.  The full set can be found in the VVorldCup photo pool on Flickr. Here are some of our favorites:

The drive itself was the same as last time, but lighter in traffic.  The smoke, however, was constant and almost burning to your throat at some points. They have begun making fire breaks in the land due to the dry winter. Fire breaks can be a wide swatch of land or all of the sides of the road for miles. we were able to see an entire mountain side on fire at one point during the drive making the road an entire fog. Now we get 5 hours of sleep and drive the opposite way to watch Brazil down in Durban play. But, we enjoy it so much.

One of the things I have mentioned on the IdoNotes blog here is how this is a community event.  Global community.  Countries really do not matter when it comes to who you talk to, walk next to, stand next to our share a bag of crisps.

After the Ghana versus Germany game, we were honored to meet some wonderful South Africans that allowed us to do the following interviews. Carl did the first one, with Andy playing the instrumental.

Andy took on the second interview of a wonderful couple that has traveled the world. They even took time after to teach the Shosholoza song

We raced back from Durban to rest about an hour before heading to the train station for Ghana versus Germany.  This promised to be a good game as both teams needed to perform to advance.  After our parking experience the other day when catching the train to Soccer City, we learned an important lesson about private garages around the parking zone.  Mainly when the main parking is free at the train platforms.

Let me describe free.  You are able to park on the street as well as in the lot, no charge for the World Cup event around Park Station.  However, when leaving, the staff runs to walk you to your car, make sure you back out correctly even if you are the only car and then expect some form of “tip”.  So in essence you do pay to park a small amount, just not officially.  The private parking charges unstated pricing depending on the mood and what you are willing.

So we parked on the platforms (the streets were full already) and as we entered the train station we were told that the last train to Soccer City was boarding.  It was a good 90 minutes before the game, for a fifteen minute train ride.  The end result is we made the train fine with Carl running.  Yes.  You read what I said.

After we moved with the sea of people, we did our intro video.

Inside it was loud as ever with huge grouping of German and Ghana fans.  In the opposite corner of our seats was an entire section of German fans that never sat down and were told to remove some banners.  A small disturbance of locals hitting each other with vuvuzelas to our left made the entire game interesting.  Yet the fans were wonderful, excited, talkative to each other and just there for a good match.

As you can see, the fans were awesome and we had excellent seats for the game.

See all of our World Cup photos at the group Flickr pool

The ride to Durban was a long one, just under 6 hours, covering beautiful countryside, fire breaks being made and plenty of small towns.  Andy posted earlier about the funny traffic sign for the workers that were everywhere.  We arrived to a great bed & breakfast (more on that in another post) to walk to Moses Mabhida Stadium.  We took two videos, one outside and one inside to introduce it to you from our perspective.  The fans were incredible as we sat with Nigeria.  The music, dancing, horns, cheering and more.  I will have those uploaded in a bit.

Outside the stadium

Inside the stadium

We even had a Nigerian priest it seemed and Nigerian Police joining us in our section. The Flickr stream has all the pictures up and running.  Head over to the VVorldcup group!