Hello my good people… gonna kick off this week by saying, and it pains me, rugby is again showing football how it’s done!
I mean the atmosphere at the United Rugby Championship (URC) final at Cape Town Stadium was maaaad! What a result, what a show, what an experience.
From the pyrotechnics and music, to the organisation, to gees in the crowd, to quality of actual play on the field.
Can I say any of that about football? No I can’t.
And then of course the lovely touch of players engaging with fans face-to-face at every corner of the stadium after the game.
It’s a whole other world compared to the bollox we get served up in the PSL. Our “national sport” is a mere runt to its oval-balled sister.
What a disgrace it is that a country with such a rich-football history has been s*** into the toilet. Danny Jordaan and his cronies have sucked out five-star lives while “Vision 2022” (the revolutionary project post-2010 to fix football) has manufactured little to enhance the sport.
Yes, they’ll talk about the few successes here and there, U17s qualifying for a World Cup, the National Women’s League, blah blah blah, but it’s just window dressing.
The bigger picture is that we’re not good at football, it’s not good to watch and we’re producing mediocre talent (from a huge pool of unbelievably good talent at grassroots level).
And there I was, sitting at Cape Town Stadium on a cold Saturday night, buzzing like I was at an FA Cup final!
What a massive moment for Cape Town and South African rugby.
On that note, can someone tell me what difference 31 000 spectators sitting closely together in two tiers makes compared with 55 000 (the capacity) in three tiers with regards to Covid? Why wouldn’t they open the rest up?
Not a frikkin’ mask in sight, security not checking vaccination certificates, what an absolute farce! Lost revenue, lost atmosphere, lost experience for 25 000 supporters.
It wouldn’t be fair to make any comparison between the PSL and the English Premier League, of course it wouldn’t.
But just in terms of marketing (or the lack of) it was interesting to see the build-up to the announcement of next season’s EPL fixtures.
On Thursday (when they came out) it triggered a media frenzy…
I mean so what? The fixtures? Ok, it’s interesting to see your opening games are but what a giant skommel. That’s the level of interest…
Over here I see more attention given to the Netflix documentary about murdered former Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa “Senzo” than I do on football itself. Can y’all name five Cape Town City players? Huh? I rest my case!
With just a few weeks before pre-season friendlies kick off, patience seems to be wearing thin amongst certain sets of fans (Manchester United and Chelsea in particular).
Manchester City striking early with Erling Haaland, Liverpool super-spending again on Darwin Nunez and Spurs grabbing Yves Bissouma (for me the most underrated player in the Premier League), it feels like it’s all happening everywhere except Old Trafford and the Bridge!
Guys, these things take time, deals worth 10s or 100s of millions need negotiating. Chelsea have only just found a new owner, for god’s sake give it a break.
Targets aren’t always available, books need to be balanced (think Romelu Lukaku) and in United’s case, a complete overhaul is gonna take a carefully planned approach.
It’s complex stuff. There’s no doubt in the coming few weeks we’ll be seeing a lot more activity, hold tight… Chat next week, bye byeeee.
dailyvoice@inl.co.za