The Ajax Cape Town vs Santos game was a BORING, EUROPEAN STYLE OF SOCCER BY NUMBERS THAT HAD NOTHING SOUTH AFRICAN ABOUT IT.

The Ajax Cape Town vs Santos game was a BORING, EUROPEAN STYLE OF SOCCER BY NUMBERS THAT HAD NOTHING SOUTH AFRICAN ABOUT IT.

If this is what we can expect for 2010, then I’m more than convinced that we wasted 4.5 Billion Rand on that new stadium. I know that everyone wants to be positive for Bafana Bafana and South African soccer, but WHAT SOUTH AFRICAN SOCCER? All I saw was a combination of the European long ball and pass the ball to the player that you’re facing. IT WAS BORING AS HELL. The talk of Cape Town and South African 2010 was immediately replaced by Ajax Amsterdam and European sterile technical, feeling-less play-soccer-by-numbers. It had NO PASSION, NO FLARE or hint of LOVE for the game. People started doing the “Mexican-wave” to entertain themselves and the game was like a screen-saver. “Professional” soccer players that played like ROBOTS, doing what the coach or what THE NORM of how soccer is played in EUROPE and what seems to be what is expected of them. WHERE WAS THE SOUTH AFRICAN FLAVOUR? Don’t even try to tell me that the “Vuvuzele” was it, that’s just some noisy uncoordinated – eardrum - rupturing crap. It’s dull drone seemed to be in sync with the dull unimaginative play of our cities “best”.

I have begun to question the concept of “our best”. Have you noticed that watching some Saturday or Sunday-league game or a game of “hondjie” now seems to be more exciting than watching what is considered to be our top teams? It’s like Pop Idols or S.A.’s got talent. Where the hell is the real talent hiding? You will find it in our clubs and churches and schools and malls and on mattresses on township fields. And the truth is, that what we are seeing being paraded as our best, is just the ones who are dedicated enough to find out about the trials, know someone with a connection and have transport to make it to “try outs” and auditions. Our best are working a low-income job to help families pay bills or dropped out of school to hang-out on street corners or just do not have the drive or dedication to be on time every single time. It’s a messed up social system that keeps the mediocre in the limelight, while the real talent slips through our fingers. That is what it felt watching Ajax Cape Town play against Santos. Remember “Teenage Dladla”, he brought himself and our SOUTH AFRICAN way of playing to the game. Saturdays game was a sterile game of text-book European, Brazilian technique analyzed and regurgitated soccer without feeling. That’s not ours. That’s not what we play in the township streets of South Africa. Why are we play like they do?

We should be dancing to our own drum and not try to catch up with their way of playing a game that we play completely different. You can never beat someone at a style that they created. OUR SOCCER is losing support because we have all these international coaches teaching our players to ignore their natural flare and enjoyment of the game of soccer. Who cares if we loose, if we are not having fun playing this game the way we do? Laughing, tricking, creating, enjoying and mostly celebrating OUR WAY of playing soccer. I’m not insulting our players, just the coaches inhibiting OUR SOUTH AFRICAN STYLE OF PLAYING. I thought it was the OUR 2010 World Cup …

Emile YX?
Cape Flats Uprising