Take Me out to the Ballgame

I attended a historic event this weekend, the opening of Cape Town Stadium. The waterfront venue is one of 10 host sites for the 2010 soccer World Cup, which runs from June 11 to July 11. As a trial run for the eight Cup matches to be staged here, the stadium hosted a contest between Ajax and Santos, two local professional teams.

Even though my enthusiasm for soccer ranks about even with my interest in Jon and Kate Gosselin’s wretched lives, I have to admit Saturday’s match was a great “I was there” moment. Only 20,000 tickets were made available, less than one-third of capacity, but the event had the atmosphere of something much bigger. I can only imagine how loud and raucous it will be when 68,000 screaming hooligans fill the stadium for a semifinal match on July 6.

Speaking of noisy – the vuvuzela is one of many reasons I abhor soccer. With thousands of fans incessantly blowing these plastic horns, it sounds like a gigantic swarm of bees or a fleet of tugboats is on the attack. Why is this necessary? My guess is it gives bored spectators something to do while so little scoring takes place on the field.

Saturday’s game was a typical shootout, ending in a 0-0 tie after 90 minutes. There was a flurry of scoring on the penalty kicks that followed, with Santos edging Ajax (the clear favorite of the fans in attendance), 6-5. As with a NASCAR race, you could have shown up in the last 10 minutes and seen everything you needed to see.

I say, give me the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium on a crisp October afternoon any day. Still, Cape Town Stadium is an impressive venue in a beautiful setting, and will surely give the city some great exposure during the World Cup. And it will be kind of exciting to be in town when that happens.