Netherlands vs. Denmark

As this was my first game at the World Cup, I was excited. As transportation links in this country are vague at best, I was a bit nervous. However, my fellow guesthouse dweller John was kind enough to give me a ride after we had breakfast at Wimpy. Traffic there wasn't bad at all, and the GPS was quite beneficial. I'll have to buy one when I get home.

Getting into the stadium wasn't a problem. I was a bit surprised by the ticketing process though. FIFA went to great pains to provide discount tickets for South African citizens and to ensure your name is on the ticket in an effort to prevent scalping and hooliganism. However, nobody asked for my ID or even looked at the name on my ticket. My ticket could have said "N'Kwane N!fuze" and nobody would have caught anything. This does give me hope in case I want to pick up a ticket outside the stadium in the future.

The Soccer City stadium is most impressive and is very well laid out. The ramps that led me up to my nosebleed section seat reminded me fondly of the Kingdome . . . sniff. Luckily I was not reminded of the Kingdome when I went to purchase beer. The price was only 30 rand, which is about USD 4. Sadly, the official beer sponsor of the World Cup is Budweiser, so that was my only option. Honestly, FIFA? Guinness didn't make a decent bid?

The atmosphere for the game was great. The Dutch often have the best fans at soccer tournaments and they were here in full force, thoroughly outnumbering the Danes. Then again, the Danes were there in full costume as well, and their population is about a quarter of that of the Netherlands. My favorite outfits were the four guys in red suits with the white cross across the chest. In total, the attendance was 85,000 or so. I had held some hopes that the vuvuzelas would not be present at this game between two Northern European teams; I was wrong and will need to bring earplugs to the next game.

I took my seat. Unlike an English game, or even a K-League game, the fans were not segregated so there was some friendly banter between the Dutch and the Danes. Though I was in the cheap seats, the view was still quite good. I was sitting next to a very friendly (and very drunk) South African who kept buying too many beers for his mates and passing them on to me. Sweet. The rendition of the Danish national anthem was stirring. Note to self, learn second verse of Danish national anthem.

It was pretty much all downhill from there though. The first half was excruciatingly boring and neither team crafted too many chances. Seconds into the second half, the Danes scored a comical own goal, with Simon Poulsen heading into his own net via Daniel Agger's back. Later on Dirk Kuyt - who plays for Liverpool and therefore sucks - tapped in after Eljero Elia hit the post. It was a poor performance by the Danes, with only a few chances of note. Japan's victory over Cameroon has made their job quite difficult now.

I decided to take the train to get back. This wasn't a great plan; the nearest train station is about a 30 minute walk from where I am staying and I didn't have a great grasp of the train system anyway. However, the train was free. The warnings about the safety of the train system seemed totally over the top, at least as far as the segment near the stadium was concerned. I was able to get to Johannesburg Park Station and catch a cab back for 100 rand, or USD 13 or so. Not a bad deal at all, I thought.