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Sunday saw the final game being played in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup tournament. Overall, the tournament was a huge success, proving without doubt that South Africa is more than capable of hosting international events.

I attended two games, one in Ellis Park in Johannesburg and one at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria. The two major issues I found detracted from the overall experience was related to huge traffic volumes blocking the way to the park and ride locations. Once there, things were very well organized and signposted with ample parking available. Though there were always long queues waiting for buses to get to the stadium, overall waiting times were not long and the bus trip to the stadium short.

Getting into the stadium and finding one’s seat was generally no problem. Gaining access to the beer of the tournament, Budweiser, took forever. Long queues and a rather ridiculous process of emptying the contents from glass bottles into plastic cups. That takes way too long and is inefficient. Also, Budweiser tastes like crap, but that’s a different story… Install a few draught taps and pre-fill as many of them plastic cups as possible pre-match, is my suggestion.

But, watching a football game should not be reliant on vast quantities of alcohol being consumed.

In my experience, crowds were very well behaved and a large police and security presence evident.

Annoying not only during the games but in queues waiting to leave the stadium, the vuvuzela.

That plastic tube is capable of an awful noise. Fine when blown in moderation during a game, but certainly a pain when blown into someone’s ear at close range. Though considered an essential part of the African football experience, chances are that the vuvuzela may be banned from the 2010 World Cup. No loss if that happens…

After the game in Pretoria, absolute chaos ensued because the crowd was not shepherded into neat little rows leading to the buses that would take them back to the park and ride facilities. With no one in control, buses were forced to stop farther and farther away from the exit and pedestrians got dangerously close to the traffic. Overall waiting time: at least two hours. The situation was far better at Ellis Park, where no one could exit anywhere other than the area where buses had their pickup point.

These organizational issues should be easy to resolve for 2010. Other issues mentioned by FIFA include a lack of accommodation and lack of a decent public transportation infrastructure. FIFA awarded a score of 75% to South Africa, not bad, I think. 80% would have been a fairer score, but we probably lost the additional 5% due to the beer fiasco…

Here’s an overview of the games and results.

Final
USA 2 : Brazil 3

3rd place
South Africa 2 : Spain 3

Semi-finals
USA 2 : Spain 0
South Africa 0 : Brazil 1

Group A
South Africa 0 : Iraq 0
New Zealand 0 : Spain 5
Spain 1 : Iraq 0
N. Zealand 0 : S. Africa 2
South Africa 0 : Spain 2
New Zealand 0 : Iraq 0

Group B
Brazil 4 : Egypt 3
USA 1 : Italy 3
Brazil 3 : USA 0
Egypt 1 : Italy 0
Brazil 3 : Italy 0
Egypt 0 : USA 3

Now, let’s get ready for the actual event: FIFA World Cup 2010!