Ciao!

The best thing about Europe so far

Without the Socceroos to follow we didn't feel there was much need to hang around South Africa. We tried to get to the New Zealand game in Polokwane the day after our game against Serbia but for some reason it was not our destiny to get to watch them. Firstly we tried to watch the Italy vs NZ game the week before but due to the friendly robbers in Rustenburg we spent the morning at the cop shop rather than driving and arrived too late. This time we got an early start but busted a tyre about 100km into the drive, that wasn't too bad, put the spare on and kept going. Then 40 minutes out of Polokwane our spare went too. Being stuck somewhere in South Africa with only 3 wheels, your brother, your Dad and two donkeys eating grass for 3 hours isn't all that exciting. We eventually got back on the road again and arrived in Polokwane with about 5 minutes of game time to go. 

I'm now safe and sound in Switzerland. The land of clockwork is a funny place to end up after being in South Africa. Here the toilets flush, the paper cups don't leak and there are no random fires burning on the side of the road. In fact everything works so damn perfectly that it makes me miss the harmonious chaos of South Africa! 

I miss the charm and erratic behaviour, the sweet exchanges with proud locals, the kangaroo comments, shakin booties and rhythm but I cannot deny that Europe really knows whats going on. World Cup is on and if you hated the sport you might just want to kill yourself (or find a redneck town in South Africa). Every shop has a plasma screen TV viewing the games, supermarkets, department stores, shops on the street. Every child wears their preferred jersey. When England lost and the Germans won you knew about it. Luckily for me I love this sport and the European football culture makes me feel right at home. 

For now I think project Girl Meets Ball can go to sleep… It's been lots of fun sharing my trip to South Africa, but now I had better get on with the rest of my ideas. I'll be in Europe for two more weeks and will then be moving to London. 

Feel free to comment and say hi! I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Thanks and goodbye 

GMB X 

The Swiss won in the gummibear World Cup!

Germany just scored their 3rd goal against England

I was in Paris on Wednesday and found their Fifa Fan Fest, I thought Sydney's was in a good location! Imagine watching France get knocked out of the group stage here... 

A poster in Paris

Robberburg

Well thank the Football Gods that we're outta there… Now, I remember at the start of the journey pointing out that I would come across some beautiful but also some ugly events here in South Africa. I can confirm that Rustenburg, for the larger part was unfortunately the latter of the two.

On the way to the stadium

Somehow things just didn't quite connect in the town. The locals and even event staff didn't really know what was what and we were often sent on little detours around the town, at times getting 3 different directions for the one location. Getting to the stadium was a shambles. We knew we had to find the 'Park and Ride' but there was little signage to be seen. Plus no public transport at all. We got there in the end. We found the stadium a fair way out of town, strangely juxtaposed around a suburb of small shanty town homes with corrugated iron walls and not much else. 

Rustenburg Fifa Fan Fest before GHANA vs AUS. This place should have been full... = bad planning!

Now, to the game, quite beautiful in parts, but ultimately such a disappointment. The Aussie fans were once again in full bloom, taking over the stadium and trying to take over the Vuvuzelas. Our first 2010 World Cup goal by Holman was a huge relief, even if it was from a set piece I was very glad to see it happen! Then came the slimy wretched red card for Kewell's 'shoulder ball'. Strange that it is once again an Italian that causes Australia such unjust misery. I feel that they are conspiring against us. In the stadium it's always confusing to figure out exactly what has happened because they don't play replays as to not stir up the crowd when a big decision is made. In came the report text message from Mum back home to say it looked pretty suss. The Aussie fans were livid. Budweiser beer bombs hurling onto the ground was not a pretty sight…

Found Andrew Orsatti, ex-SBS reporter, works for ESPN in the US now.

Instead of being glum bums we got a bunch of the Aussies together and found a bar that was a tip off from a local. We found ourselves deep in thick and sticky Afrikaans White Supremacist, Rugby lovin' territory. What fun! The Aussies stuck together and had a good time but it was hard to avoid the constant niggling Yarpies in our ear. I can honestly say we could not have one conversation with them that didn't involve the locals repulsing at the fact that there was a Football World Cup going on (actually, many basically tried to blank it from their minds), or hurling racist remarks in many shapes and forms. Earlier in the day when we asked one guy for directions to the stadium he replied with 'oh, you mean the newly built Rugby stadium?'… Now I have no problem with Rugby, but there is a time and a place and it's probably not at the Football World Cup, try New Zealand next year… It completely baffles me that these people can not embrace the fact that the whole world is coming together to celebrate the World Cup in their country, regardless if they like it or not, it is a beautiful thing. 

This is not to say at all that this is a representation of everyone. Many other South Africans we've met have been absolutely charming and helpful, plus many warnings were sent our way that we might experience this type of person in the smaller towns. Every country has them!

To top off a strange 24 hours in Rustenburg our evening was spoilt in a way that maybe we were almost expecting eventually. I won't get right into the gritty, let's just say it was our turn - went out to by a new GPS today amongst other things…. Thankfully my 24 pack of Crayola colours is still securely in my possession. 

FREAKIN amazing KIWI pride right here by the way. I'm claiming my half All Whites side to the bank! Soothes the pain from Italy vs Australia back in 2006!

Follow other World Cup lovers!

-Check out Vijay Khurana and Dom Knight's Triple J 'World Cup Safari' podcasts for World Cup fun of the audio kind. 

-The boys from www.onofficial.com are also covering the events here in South Africa in a colourful way, follow them for some more fun! 

SBS World Chant - Lets all play some football!

It's not often that you make your singing debut on national television… Somehow this has happened to me. Luckily I've left the country! Sorry if you all want to shoot the screen by the end of World Cup!

I shot this for SBS back in about April and left the country before it came on TV but just found it on Youtube. 

I think they've done a really good job of bringing an honest representation of many nationalities together. The creative team at US Sydney worked hard to find real football fans from all around the world and travelled to something like 8 countries in 2 weeks to capture the footage you see in this clip. 

Well done on a beautiful song!

I've been up to lots of fun stuff in the last couple of days - will get a post together as soon as I can! 

Bafana I love you

I have been released from Airport purgatory and have arrived in the land of Bafana Bafana! Social appropriateness is thrown out the window… Here, you do take candy from strangers, you talk to people when you get in a lift (you even hold the lift for them) - in fact you sing with them too and best of all you park wherever you like. The idea of a parking ticket need not enter one's mind. 

This is my first chance to use internet, yesterday we had a busy day getting our feet on the ground. We headed out to the Sandton Fifa Fan Fest to catch the opening game action. South Africa vs Mexico. The locals were truly electric, as we drove out, thousands of South African's dressed in complete Bafana (name of the SA national team) kits were pouring out onto the roads, parking wherever suited, one car just pulled up in the middle of the highway to watch the game as he had found himself in perfect line of sight to the big screen!

The live site was absolutely chokkas so we drove a little further to a shopping area, parked and found ourselves in quite a funny situation. We opted to just watch the first game somewhere quiet and find some atmosphere for the next game so we asked a local for a good spot, this lovely young gentleman led us into some office blocks and said there was some people watching a game in there. Now I know you're not supposed to follow strangers in South Africa but it seemed OK so we followed… He led us to big room with heaps of South Africans and a big screen. Heavenly! Couldn't complain… So we sat down and got comfy. It was only when we were offered free alcohol that we began to feel a little sheepish. Eventually someone from the company whose building we were in came up to us and asked how we got in. We played the cute tourist card and she laughed it off and let us stay!

WORLD CUP - This is how humans should be all the time! 

Now we're just road tripping off to Durban. Here we will meet the rest of the Australian fans and prepare for tomorrow's match!!

World Cup playlist: Men At Work // Empire of the Sun // Darwin Deez // Midnight Oil //  Gorillaz // Illy // Fleetwood Mac // Passion Pit // ACDC // Jay-Z // Kasbian // Friendly Fires // Dizzee Rascal // Vampire Weekend // Lisa Mitchell

Cool

- Park where you like

- Do what you like 

- Everyone is smiling

- Staff at most businesses get to wear what they like to work. No wanky uniforms!

- Traffic lights are called 'Robots'

Fool 

- Too many countries with Green and Gold! South Africa, Aussies, Brazil. ITS OURS! Opting to wear the aussie flag around instead to avoid confusion. 

- Organisation; some aspects are not running as smoothly as we would have hoped. 

- My immune system is taking the mick out of me… Whenever I get into a new country I get sick! No exception here, caught myself a flu. 

- Hard to figure out which ones the staff are in shops. 

Count down ends!

A few memories from Germany 2006

GOOAAALLLL! Aus vs Japan Germany Kaiserslauten

Aus Vs Cro Family Snap! Germany 2006

When I was still in High School in 2006 I took my first ever trip overseas; my introduction to the rest of the world was Germany's FIFA World Cup. In that one month of breathless passion I experienced such an unreal and raw time, to my young eyes everything was golden, glittering and exciting. I suppose timing had a lot to do with it, my age, Australia's situation as well as their relative success made my time in Germany ever more the 'life changing' experience. So, as South Africa was approaching and my family made plans to make the pilgrimage again it obviously got me thinking about our time in Germany and just how unexplainable it was, so this time I thought it'd be fun to document the whole process to share with everyone! 

I started counting down 128 days ago via this blog… Today, there is just one day to go and I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. I'll arrive in Johannesburg on Friday morning, awaiting for me will be a whole country bursting out of it's seams with pride and passion as well as 1000's of fans from all over the world. Everyone's there for one reason. A mass of humans ready to enjoy themselves, their inhibitions gone - ready to hug any random that walks past…

It's been a rather entertaining little project for me to have on the side and has been a great way to keep up to date with the lead up to the tournament. The best thing is that the real fun begins now! 

There's no doubt that over the next few weeks there'll be lots to see, some beautiful, maybe some ugly.  I hope to take as many pictures as possible to share and upload. 

Most of all hopefully it's safe and hopefully Australia does well! 

One step closer...

I was met this morning by my yahooing brother and father at Zurich airport twirling their Aussie scarves above their heads... The swiss were a little concerned but when I saw them I knew I was in safe hands! 

Only God knows how I could have possibly detoured to Zurich on my way to South Africa... But anyway here I am! The lovely Luis and Florence have looked after us and conveniently live a sweet 5 minute walk from FIFA head quarters so as if I could get away with not visiting! I went over with Dad, took some snaps and then preceded on my run and managed to get lost!!! It really sucked. But anyway I'm back now, happy that a Swiss bear didn't eat me. 

NEXT STOP SOUTH AFRICA!

Happy High Pants

Nothing like a bit of click pout and pose! In the fashion world blogs are big and a good friend of mine Zanita Whittington is one of the best, so last week we decided it'd be fun to collaborate and make blog babies.

With World Cup knocking loudly on our doors it was fitting for Zanita to feature a fashionably sexy, sporty chic fashion post - I love the results! Zanita waved her magical wand over the football/exercise version of me, and trust me, I never look this good when I'm running!  She's an amazing young photographer/model, can't wait to see some awesome opportunities come her way.

I had to pop on my new Nike Socceroo's jersey to goof about a little in the middle of all the shots, I've never had a jersey that wasn't an oversized triple XL so I'm loving this one!

Check out the rest at http://www.zanita.com.au

In other more relevant news, yes, we lost on Saturday night to the USA 3 - 1. Of course not ideal, however, a friendly can never be as fiercely contested. The Socceroo's now have about a week left before our first massive match against Germany so I'm sure preparations in South Africa are being finely tuned down to the last mouthful of cereal.

As for me, today I feel a little more settled. I've finalised nearly all of my life in Sydney and am carefully packing for South Africa!

2 Days till I leave, 4 days till the first World Cup game... I wonder what this journey has in store!

Delayed Telecast

Only a week behind!


This will certainly clarify your suspicions that I have little else to do in my life... Slowly but surely I have built my Socceroos class of 2010! I have an essay due this week but once this idea was in my mind there was no stopping me...


This is the preliminary World Cup squad of 31 players that was announced last week by Pim Verbeek. The team will now gather in preparation for their World Cup send off match on the 24th of May against New Zealand at Melbourne's MCG and then continue on to South Africa for more pre-World Cup matches. Pim then faces the heavy task of cutting the team down to a slender 25 players. Good luck boys!


Left to Right Top to Bottom:

Carl Valeri, Adam Federici, Jade North, Mark Milligan, Nick Carle, Mark Schwarzer, Richard Garcia, Harry Kewell, Dario Vidosic, Brett Emerton, Rhys Williams, 

2nd row; Eugene Galekovic, Mark Bresciano, Jason Culina, Brad Jones, Tim Cahill, Tom Oar, Vince Grella, Lucas Neill, Shane Lowry, Scott Mcdonald, Front Row; Scott Chipperfield, Nikita Rukavytsya, Mile Jedinak, Craig Moore, Brett Holman (holding rat), David Carney, Luke Wilkshire, Micheal Beauchamp, Josh Kennedy, James Holland 

Fashion Week Meets Football

Last week was Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in Sydney. Now, usually it's all about nails, fake tan and hairspray, but last week there were only two things on the lips of all the models. World Cup and the Socceroos!

Here's proof!

Eagerly waiting to hear tomorrows news of the Socceroos squad announcement..

World Cup South Africa 2010 Magazines

The Soccer International Magazine succeeded in fooling me the other day... I saw this in a dodgy corner store as I was walking home and my eyes lit up! $15 dollars later I pulled it out of the paper bag thinking it was a FIFA's Official World Cup South Africa 2010 release to find it was a local opinion on it all! Not to worry too much, it's still a good read... I just don't like being tricked! There's plenty of other special World Cup editions popping up... Will be interesting to see which publications manage to get some different content.
Soccer International 1 vs GMB 0

2 minutes and 39 seconds with Tommy Oar

Photo thanks to Matt Reed

Tommy Oar is to the Australian football media what Justin Bieber is to a 12 year old hyperventilating
 girl. He's still a spring chicken at 18 and has been given some great opportunities in the last year. With an Australian Socceroos appearance, a great season at Brisbane Roar and a signing with Dutch club FC Utrecht to boot. 

I had a little chat to him yesterday at the Nike launch. He seemed very lovely and not yet jaded by all this commotion. Hopefully the older boys don't corrupt him! 


Here are the very important questions that I asked... 

If you were not a Footballer what's one thing would you like to be?

I’ve been involved in football since I was young so I don’t think it would be a very good thing – For a dream thing definitely a Rock Star!

Out of the Big 5 in South Africa (Cheetah, Lion, Buffalo, Elephant, Rhino) which would you most like to see if you get to go?

Definitely the Lion

And which one would you most like to be?

Probably the Elephant, that way you don’t have any prey

You’re driving in a car and the light goes orange; do you speed up or slow down?

Speed up!

If you’re in a restaurant and the food isn’t what you expect do you get them to take it back or do you just eat it?

I definitely wouldn’t get them to take it back

If Australia gets to host the World Cup for 2018 or 22 which city should host the final?

Probably being biased but I reckon the Gold Coast

Bus or Walk? Walk

Postecoglou or Farina? No comment!

Einstein or Shakespeare? Shakespeare

PC or Mac? Mac

Gaga or Beyonce? Neither!

Sea or land? Land

Multi-choice or essay? Multi choice

Fruit or Veg? Fruit

Nike's Socceroos Jersey Extravaganza!

A sunny Sydney morning on the harbour was the perfect location for Craig Moore and Tommy Oar to show off Nike's new 2010 Socceroos jersey.

The lovely Nike team invited me along to the press call, which included a putt around the harbour on a nice swanky 3 level yacht, followed by a presentation to the media. This involved a little brekkie, lots of technical chat about the jersey’s new features and plenty of filming and snapping.

Now, I’ll admit that I’ve never actually been to a press call so this was all quite a novelty to me. I did my best to act like I knew what I was doing and to get SUPER DOOPER EXCLUSIVE pics and info for all of my Girl Meets Ball readers!!

The jersey in my opinion is rather nice. Understated and clean - nothing risky. The incorporation of the green across the shoulders takes us back to the true green and gold feel which I felt we was missing over the last few years with the predominantly yellow strip (although, the sea of yellow at matches did look pretty amazing). Other than that, the jersey’s main boasting rights are its super eco-friendly production, which I’m quite a fan of. It’s made out of 100 per cent polyester, diverting 13 million plastic bottles from landfills.

The boys (Craig and Tom) did a great job of standing around in their T-shirts. Sydney has made the most pathetic attempt of an autumn but today was one of the first days that had a bit of a nip in the air so I hope they don’t catch a cold! They were also very gracious to hang about and have a chat to the hounding (but loving) media. I even got amongst it – My first two interviews ever! I asked some pretty hard hitting questions… you just wait! 

A 3D World Cup?

There’s been quite a bit of talk about making World Cup 3D so I’m going to join in on the conversation...

SBS are apparently looking into buying the rights to bring the World Cup to Australia in 3D. 

I can see a few problems at the moment... Not only will SBS have to buy the rights to 3D game footage, they will also need to purchase the equipment needed to broadcast to Australian viewers. Of which I would think would be quite a small number considering, as far as I know, the public also need to buy a 3D television (unless this is for public venues? Who's got glasses?). Another thing is that, as most viewers will be watching in 2D I don't think the coverage of the games in 3D would be as good. There's already enough equipment running about the pitch I can't see how they're going to fit in another whole set of 3D cameras. 

That being said, it would be pretty cool, I suppose 3D will be a big part in the future of our digital lives, so why not test it out on the biggest event on earth!

In traditional fashion I've doctored up an image of relatively random relevance... A Na'vi playing football! How cool would that be! 

Socceroos’ home amongst the Real Yellowwood tree

These photos were released a little while ago now but I came across them today and decided it was important information!

This will be the Socceroos’ home sweet home while in South Africa. The Kloofzicht Lodge is all fitted out; water hole, rolling hills and native trees – somewhere I think a roo might like to hang.

I had a perve on Google Maps to suss it out, like the good little Blogger that I am, and unfortunately it seems that the resort isn’t very close to any little towns that might chuck a party for the Australian fans… In Germany 2006 the gorgeous little town of Ohringen hosted the Australian team and I think after the World Cup they all claimed Aussie citizenship! The whole town got amongst it with Aussie flags everywhere; I love Australia banners in window shops, locals walking around saying G’day mate and then to top it off a big party day with music and dancing and the whole she-bang!

Anywho, not to worry I’m sure we’ll make our own fun over in South Africa!

More of the lodge here.

SBS's Golden Ticket

SBS are being rewarded for their forward thinking back in 2006 to buy out the TV rights to the World Cup up until 2014. 


In a decision by FIFA, all TV networks without rights to official World Cup broadcasting (everyone bar SBS) will not be permitted into traning sessions, stadiums and after match press conferences. 


FIFA justified its decision, which seems to be out of the ordinary, by explaining "Due to the large interest of confirmed media rights licensees. . . no non-rights holder accreditations can be considered."


I think this is a pretty rough choice for FIFA to make. It's a great thing for SBS, however, I think it would really help Australian Football if we had as much coverage as possible. As SBS hold the official rights they're the only ones who can show the games so they would most likely benefit from other stations referring viewers. 


Within these limits the other four major stations will still cover the World Cup.


Read the full article here.

Stab Vest anyone?

Is it wrong of me to find this a little bit funny?

The South African authorities and FIFA don't. They have both condemned the London based business that’s trying to make a buck out of South Africa’s potential safety problems. 

Fairly so, I think it is in pretty bad taste, it’s a little insensitive and I would see it as something that might well attract negative attention and just perpetuate the negative vibe…

I’m a little bit sick of all the pessimistic, cynical buggers running about telling me I’m not going to make it out alive of South Africa… Fear is an interesting thing - I think that it is best ignored and that life is best LIVED! I think as long as people are switched on and try not to get them selves into mischief, generally (I hope) things will be fine… 

How could I pass up on not posting the gorgeous male model in the 'ole' vest?! It did make me think twice about the necessity of the vest...

p.s. Thanks for the comments! Keep them coming :)  

World Cup Warm Up AUS VS USA

Our first warm up match in South Africa was announced today. I've decided to keep running with my food theme for the day, so if you hadn't guessed already it's 
America VS Australia! The game will be played in Roodepoort at Ruimsig Stadium 
on June the 5th.

I think it's a little strange that Pim thinks that "Their style of play will allow us to test our players against similar opposition to what we will face at the World Cup"... I 
wouldn't say Germany, Ghana or Serbia have any particularly similar traits... But 
hey, it's a good start none the less. Maybe he's talking about when we get out of our group stage??..!

Anywhoo, another Tuesday gone - Good night world. 

GMB XO

Meet Shazza!

A trip down to Canberra for the weekend to see some of the family has resulted in a little adventure around with my old ally from the Germany World Cup in 2006, Shazza. She came out of her natural habitat in The Bush Capital to show me around!

Shazza is a special type of Roo, the best kind, a well known Australian icon, the Boxing Kangaroo. She’s no lout, nor aggressive or arrogant, Shazza is known for her self-confidence and assertive strike which are useful when it comes to defending her country’s honour! 

And for today's Football department; even though I was keen for Newcastle to win I'm really happy for Wellington Pheonix and New Zealand Football tonight... An awesome crowd and great feeling for them! Just watching Sydney vs Melbourne on the tele now!