Goodbye Benni

The news spread across the country like wildfire: Benni McCarthy has been left out of South Africa’s final 2010 Fifa World Cup squad.

My hat goes off to Carlos Alberto Parreira for making what must have been a very difficult decision. McCarthy, for all his petulance, is probably the most skilled football player South Africa has when fully fit. However, the fact that he has been munching down the pies and walked a walk that shouted pig-headedness, as if he assumed his inclusion was a sure thing, could have been pointers that swayed Parreira and the technical team’s decision.

Either way, it’s the right call and the ultimate rebuke to McCarthy, who caused more problems off the pitch instead of providing solutions on it. SA might not have any star players apart from the industrious Steven Pienaar, but I take heart in knowing that the 23 men he has picked to represent our country at one of the greatest tournaments of them all would all put their bodies on the line in the name of South Africa. What South Africa deserves is a team that is motivated by the passion brought to the stadiums by the fans, and to this end Bafana Bafana, and Parreira, have given us a fair shake.

I’m sure there will be those who will decry the decision, but somehow I believe that as the sun rises tomorrow, we would have seen and heard the last of McCarthy being anywhere near a Bafana Bafana shirt. For McCarthy, it is a sad end to a promising career that has gone belly up, pun intended, over the last few years. Did he deserve it? Yes. Joel Santana may have been many things, but at least he saw the folly in trying to tempt McCarthy back to the national set-up where the impression given by the UK-based striker is that it’s all about Benni. Goodbye Benni. I will remember the good times fondly, but now is the time for SA to move on.

The Fifa World Cup gets under way in less than 10 days! Wow! Who would have thought the moment has finally arrived for the best footballers on earth to come to South Africa and strut their stuff on African soil. While I have my doubt about the legitimacy of claiming this tournament as Africa’s World Cup, it certainly is ours, the Rainbow Nation’s.

We stand on the brink of something special, and while not everything will run perfectly and there will be problems, was it worth it? You bet your ass it was. Congratulations should go to the Local Organising Committee for:

a) Avoiding Safa’s chronic incompetence as much as humanly possible.
b) Giving South Africans a reason to be inspired (most of us anyway).
c) Getting the job done (mostly … some of those road works were never going to be finished in time but we pretty much knew that).

The time has come and though we can only make a proper judgement once July 12 passes, I’m pretty damn excited. I don’t think we know what is about to hit us. It’s going to be one hell of a party! Good luck to all the teams, especially Bafana Bafana. Make us proud!