Jeffrey's Bay to Swellendam

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On the morning after Brazil’s loss, we woke up and caught up on some blogging. Janel was feeling a little less bitter towards the Dutch and was ready to consider cheering for them in semi-final. I reminded her several times that the Dutch did nothing towards us, they were always friendly and should they win it all, it would be neat as we pretty much followed the champions all the way.

We got on the road around 10am on the way to Cape Agulhas, which is the southern-most tip of Africa. I didn’t think we were going to get there today, at least during sunlight, but we thought we’d go as far as we could. The night before, while talking with the Dutch fans after the game, I asked one of them what they thought we should do on the way back to Cape Town. One of them lived in Cape Town and worked for a tourism company, and he highly recommended visiting a town about 40 minutes out of the way to visit the Cango Caves. As we drove, I kept doing the math and trying to figure out if we had time to get there, visit the caves and then make it to a bar/restaurant in time for the 4pm kickoff of the Argentina - Germany quarter-final. Everything was going ok until we reached a tiny town called Knysna. It should have taken us about 4 minutes to pass through this town as it is very small. The only problem we ran into were 2 of them really: an annual Oyster Festival and a mountain biking race. That translated into 1 hour of waiting/driving around trying to find a faster route; the “faster” routes turned out horribly because the roads we needed were closed for the day, so we had to be patient. That meant that the trip to Oudtshoorn and the caves was out of the question. We did some estimating and figured out that we could drive as far as Mossel Bay and make it in time for a late lunch and viewing of the Argentina game.

We found a pub on the main bay, ordered 2 beers, a delicious plate of calamari and chips and watched as Argentina was surprisingly slaughtered by the efficient Germans. Wow, I was not expecting that. On one hand, I wanted Argentina to do well because their coach, the great Diego Maradona, was my favourite player growing up; on the other hand, had they won the tournament, we would never hear the end of it. Diego is a fiery character, thinks he is the greatest of all-time (probably isn't) and the Argentines call him 'D10S' (note the 10 in the word, his jersey number)...in other words...God. He had won them a World Cup in 1986, so if he had won this one as coach, to what status would he be elevated to? I didn't want to know. Argentina was pretty much dominated by the speedy Germans. Argentina had a relatively easy path to the quarters, and their defensive line had not been tested yet by anyone decent. I figured that Germany would expose their flaws, lack of speed and age; I didn't really want that to be the case, but I thought they would. The final score of 4-0 sent a message to all others teams still in the tournament: Germany is for real. And to boot, Miroslav Klose scored 2 goals in this game, meaning he is only 1 goal behind Ronaldo for most goals in World Cups. Of course I don't want this record to be broken, but if he does break it, he definitely deserves it. After beating England 4-1 and Argentina 4-0, Germany are the clear favorites in my book, especially since Spain is struggling to score. I was also sad to see Argentina go home because I wanted to see Messi, the best player in the world, play live. Maybe next time.

After the game, we calculated that we could only go as far as a small town called Swellendam in order to be able to watch the night game: Paraguay - Spain. We called ahead and booked a double room for the night at a hostel. This meant that in the morning, we would only need to drive about 45 minutes to Cape Agulhas. We arrived in Swellendam 30 minutes before the game and were taken to our cabin. The lady that runs the place offered us a traditional African dinner that she was preparing for some other guests. We accepted the offer, sat down to watch the game and ate a delicious meal.

The game itself was ok, not the most exciting first half. But whatever the first half lacked, the second half had in abundance. With 20 minutes to go, Piquenbauer (Gerrard Pique) held and pulled the arm of a Paraguayan forward during a corner kick. Such fouls always annoy me because referees don't usually call penalties on such plays, but the Guatemalan referee did. Penalty for Paraguay. If they were to convert it, they would only need to defend for 20 minutes to advance to the semis. Much to everyone 's surprise, the shot was poorly taken and Iker Casillas saved it!!! If you thought that was exciting, Spain went down the field and were awarded, in ERROR, a penalty themselves. David Villa took a pass in the box, got tangled up with the defender and clumsily fell. What a turn-around. Just a minute ago, Spain was on the brink of being down. When I saw Xabi Alonso line up for the kick I was worried as they had much better skilled players on the field. He stepped up and easily scored: 1-0 Spain. But...the referee, who by now was trying to be the star of the show, called it back because Spanish players had invaded the box prior to the kick being taken. Xabi re-took the penalty and this time, the goalie saved it!!!!! WOW!!! At this point, there are 2 key observations to make:
1. On the rebound, Cesc Fabregas was fouled by the goalie and Spain should have been awarded another penalty.
2. When we got to see Paraguay’s penalty miss again on replay, Spanish players had invaded the box before the kick worse than they did on their penalty. Paraguay, based on the same rule, should have been awarded a re-kick and weren’t. I sure hate it when teams are treated unfairly, let alone in a big game like this.

All that drama aside, it seemed the 2 teams were destined for a 0-0 finish. Spain at this point looked like the Spain of past tournaments when it fizzled in the important matches, or bad luck/poor refereeing put them out of tournaments. Then, with 10 minutes left, little genius Iniesta flashed by a defender, rolled it to fellow-Barca player Pedro, who put it by the Paraguayan keeper. The ball hit the post, landed in front of David Villa, who took a shot that went off the far post, then back off the near post and in...incredible sequence!!! 1-0 Spain!!! Spain held on for the win and confirm a matchup with Germany in the Final.

A few days ago I said how this was a South American World Cup. I guess I spoke too soon, because in the 4 quarter-final matches, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay were sent home, while Uruguay needed a miracle to get past Ghana. All of a sudden, we have Uruguay-Holland on one side and Germany-Spain on the other. The Germany-Spain game is a repeat of the Euro Championships Final from 2008 when Spain won 1-0. If Holland beats Uruguay, Janel and I are assured of seeing a great final. We will either see a war between Germany and Holland, 2 countries that hate each other, or Spain - Holland, two underachievers that have never won the big one. Let 's see what happens next.

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