Carry on Kampuchea...

(Having previously dumped - sorry, pasted - despatches from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe on here, I somehow forgot a couple from Cambodia. Following the recent sentencing of Khmer Rouge guard "Duch", and because, well well, just because, here are a few thoughts from Cambodia, from last November)



THE PRETTY waitresses may appear eager to please, pouring cocktails and politely applauding Western tourists’ slurred karaoke crooning or drinking game exploits.
But Thailand’s superficially-glitzy nightlife is shot through with sexual slavery, abuse and violence - and, increasingly, lethal disease.
Thai capital Bangkok is shadowed by Poipet - the shabby, sleazy Cambodian frontier district racked by Aids after becoming a feeder town for Thailand’s sex trade.
And it is not just the exploited and trafficked local women at risk - Western tourists themselves are both to blame and in danger, as dark warnings from HIV-positive victims make clear.
Every morning at 7am, as soon as a tinny recording of the national anthem ends and a shrill whistle blows, the border opens for the day.

Thousands of people will take that as the cue to start pouring through these dusty, seedy streets either side of a faux-grand arch proclaiming ‘Kingdom Of Cambodia’.
Some of them are Western backpackers passing through, and a few more are Thais making the most of the nine new casinos operating here – enjoying a trip away from a country where gambling is forbidden.
But many others are poverty-stricken Cambodians heading into Thailand for the day to make a dollar or two hauling carts or working in the paddy fields.
Most will return home by the time the border shuts again at 8pm.
But there are those making their way to work in Thailand who may never come home again – or if they do, will only do so traumatised by their sex abuse ordeal and infected with HIV.
Tempted over by silver-tongued traffickers promising sought-after work – many of them women themselves – Cambodian victims will quickly find themselves enslaved in brothels and sordid bars instead.
You Ra is one of those victims, now one of the estimated 84,000 adults living with HIV in a country where death from the disease is more likely than in most nations.
Until recently the country had the fastest-rising HIV infection rate in the world, reaching 3.3 per cent, and though this figure has fallen to 0.8 per cent it is still the second worst in Asia.
Poipet’s infection rate is estimated to be at least ten times the national average.

These days You Ra, despite her frailty, drags a cart packed with cheap food and drink across into Thailand and back again each day.
But the 32-year-old was once one of those entrapped by the sex trade, enduring three years in a Thai bar – notionally as a waitress, but in fact as a prostitute forced to sleep with up to ten men each night.
Often these were drunken Western tourists, crudely demanding sex for up to 1,000 baht (£18) a time – and turning violent if their unsubtle advances were resisted.
You Ra herself never saw any of that money, which was paid directly to her employer - instead told she should count herself lucky to receive three bowls of rice each day.
‘The owner would say he paid a very expensive price for me, about 100,000 baht (£1,800), and I didn’t have the right to anything,’ she recalled.
She had been a widowed mother-of-three, unable to find a job, when first approached by a woman promising employment sewing trousers, across the border from Poipet.
You Ra was accompanied by her self-proclaimed saviour, plus five other women, as she was hustled across the border and travelled on through Thailand for 16 hours straight.
Eventually she was deposited in a large bar in the city of Chonburi, where the owner instantly ordered the women into shorter skirts and skimpier tops – and made it clear what their new duties would be.
In fact, he himself provided the most brutal of initiations by raping You Ra, something he would repeat regularly during her time there – beating her up if she ever tried to resist.
Breaking down in tears, she told Metro: ‘We didn’t want to go along with this, but the owner would beat us morning and night. We said we had to force ourselves to do whatever the customers wanted.
‘During the day we could rest and sleep, but at night we had to serve the men who came. I had to sleep with between five and ten people every night.
‘Many of them were Thai people, but some were Cambodians who had crossed the border for work, and others were from Myanmar.
‘There were also customers from the West, lighter-skinned men, who could behave very badly when they got drunk.
‘Some could be more gentle, but others would get very violent – especially if they felt they weren’t satisfied enough, and they would start to attack.’
Ferocious dogs posted around the building’s perimeters not only kept any troublesome customers from escaping if they refused to pay.
They also helped frustrate any hopes You Ra had of fleeing, leaving her feeling: ‘Every long day, I thought I would die there – I thought there was no way out, for the rest of my life.’
Surprise salvation came, however, when a nearby property set fire and she used the confusion to escape and run away.
But even once she had eventually made it home and remarried, more heartache awaited.
Signs of sickness and fever in her fifth son, 18-month-old Chai Chorvant, prompted her to take him to hospital for a blood test revealing he was HIV-positive.
You Ra was swiftly diagnosed with the disease as well, along with her new husband Chai Dam, 31 – all three now victims of some sordid encounter with one of those abusive clients.
She said: ‘I’m very angry that I don’t know how to do them harm or repay them for what they’ve done to me,’ she said.
‘Now I’m always warning women to be careful, no matter how desperate they may feel.
‘And Westerners should realise bars like that, HIV is there already – tourists should keep well away if they don’t want to be infected too.
‘Working in that bar was like being in Hell for me. Now HIV has made my life another Hell – I face a death sentence every day.’

***


HAN Sry had only been lying prone in Poipet’s spartan, solitary Aids healthcare unit for a day.
But already she – and her 12-year-old daughter, on 24-hour bedside vigil – feared death was on its way.
Already widowed by Aids, the 40-year-old was one of seven patients in the ill-equipped 15-bed unit at Poipet’s main health centre.
More often than not, according to senior doctors here, all 15 beds are occupied – forcing further arrivals to sleep on the hard concrete floors.
Speaking hoarsely to Metro through a translator, Han Sry said: ‘I was very weak when I was taken ill and was very happy to be brought here to hospital.
‘But I’m worried now – worried about the future for my children, my 17-year-old son and my 12-year-old daughter.
‘My husband is already dead. I’m scared of dying too, because I think about what the destiny will be for my children after I’m gone.’
Her daughter Srey Mao added: ‘I’m frightened. My mother has got HIV and I’m worried about her dying.
‘I’ve spent all the time with her since she came to the hospital.
‘I wish above all that she maybe could get better – but I’m not sure she ever will.’
The Aids patients, many now in the final stages of their life, are housed in a crumbling concrete block with peeling surfaces, no glass in the windows and only a couple of taps on the walls for sanitation.
The word ‘hospital’ is actually little more than a convenient label for Poipet 1 Healthcare Centre, where staff can perform no operations and crucial equipment is frequently denied them by government.
The nearest main hospital is two hours’ drive away in the city of Siem Reap.
The healthcare centre’s director Soun Sophal dutifully files reports pleading for extra staff, shower and toilet facilities for Aids patients, and a new ward segregating HIV and tuberculosis beds.
But so far he has received little help from the country’s ministry of health, winning only outright refusals – or no reply at all.
This is despite his 23 staff, at the 150-bed centre, diagnosing an average of 15 new HIV-positive cases every month.
He believes they have carried out 10,000 HIV tests since opening seven years ago.
Though firm figures are not available, his estimates suggest 1,260 positive results in that time – an infection rate of 12.6 per cent, well above the national average of 0.9 per cent.

***

KHEN Vein is still shaken by how her husband went off to fight as a child soldier for Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, the barbaric army that would murder her two sisters.
Yet while she survived Cambodia’s ‘Killing Fields’ nightmare of the Seventies, the 21st century has provided a fatal legacy of her own.
And again her husband Chau-ut Thet can be implicated – not for the loss of those sisters, but the deadly disease now poisoning both his wife and his son.
Chau-ut, a child soldier at the not so tender age of 11, is now himself dead – killed by Aids aged just 44.
His adulterous affairs while looking for work in Cambodia’s major cities left not only him HIV-positive.
He also then passed on the infection to his wife Khen Vein when returning to their rural home village of Toulsalla, about 50km outside the capital Phnom Penh.
That sad inheritance is also borne by their nine-year-old son Thet Sokchan.

Many who lived through the Pol Pot era can be shy about recalling the four-year period in which 1.7million Cambodians died through torture, execution, disease and starvation.
But some are prepared to delve into those bleak memories, whether prompted by curious visitors – or the ongoing trial of notorious prison camp commander Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch.
Revelations at his genocide trial, now approaching its end, include descriptions of how inmates were routinely beaten, received electric shocks, had their toenails torn out and were waterboarded.
When the invading forces came to call on Khen Vein’s village, her sisters were among those taken hostage, bound and gagged and hustled away to be slaughtered elsewhere.
Khen Vein, now 50, recalled: ‘My two sisters were murdered by Pol Pot’s forces because they were too educated.
‘Some of the troops did start questioning me as well, but I did my best to seem as ignorant as possible – I pretended I hadn’t learnt anything at all, and they let me go.’
Her husband was 16 when they married – and already a veteran of several years’ Khmer Rouge training, deep in the Cambodian mountains.
But she admitted: ‘I didn’t understand very much at the time – I was just afraid.
‘My husband and I didn’t talk much about the killings that were going on – just more about his basic duties and the things he’d have to fix.
‘Life was so difficult. I couldn’t go to school – there was nothing to eat. We had to walk the longest distances just to find any scraps of food.
‘At least now I can get dressed in peace. I have food to eat. My children can go to school and enjoy their education.’
Yet Thet Sokchan’s school days have been blighted by taunts and snubs from fellow pupils, aware of his HIV status.
In villages such as Toulsalla and Roka, in the province of Kandal, charities such as Tearfund-aided World Relief put on drama, puppetry and music classes to educate all ages about health risks – and health myths too, to erode prejudice.
But Khen Vein told how neighbours would bar their children from playing anywhere near her home.
And Thet Sokchan himself said: ‘The kids there would curse my mother. I didn’t scold them back – I would only cry to myself instead.’
His philandering father died in hospital in September 2005, with Thet Sokchan recalling: ‘I remember my father holding me to his leg when he was very sick and had to go to the hospital. After that, he didn’t come back.’
At least the anti-retroviral drugs he takes without fail at 6am and 6pm each day have stabilised his condition.
Yet while an estimated 60 per cent of Cambodia’s 84,000 HIV patients now have access to ARV drugs, some corrupt medics are exploiting government provisions by introducing charges – especially in areas where aid agencies have stepped back.
Even fees of $1 or $2 can be prohibitive in some of the poorest regions.
Thet Sokchan not only receives his, however, but was also given an alarm clock by World Relief to remind him when to take them.
But Khen Vein feels sickly more often, losing all strength and regularly falling dizzy.
‘That makes me worry all the more about my children,’ she fretted.
‘There are three of the five I’m still very responsible for, especially the youngest.
‘If I die, who will take care of my child?’
‘I’m afraid about that too,’ Thet Sokchan quietly, solemnly added.

"The reign in Spain falls mainly on the plain..."

... and they all lived happily ever after.
Thrillingly enjoyable as this entire tournament has been, one worry nagged away as the days, hours, minutes dwindled before the final kick-off.
All memories could be spoiled, or at least slightly tainted… should Spain somehow contrive, yet again, not to triumph.

Okay, an admission: that’s just a cut-and-paste job, from my final reflections on the Euro 2008 final, though sentiments remain the same two years on.
Perhaps the Spanish, while by far the classiest and finest team here, have been a little more halting – even frustrating – en route to becoming world champions for the first time.
Like France in 2000, the last team to combine both world and European titles, the performances second time around have been a little slow-ish at points – but eventually relentless, inarguable and of the glossiest high-quality finish.
Yet it took yet another late rescue by the cherishable Andres Iniesta tonight to save us from a fate far worse than had, say, Germany somehow won in Vienna two years ago.
Heading into the final minutes of extra-time, at the end of a disappointing if not unwatchable World Cup final, the horrible prospect of the depressing Dutch stealing victory on penalties loomed large.
Joachim Low’s 2008 European Championship team were nowhere near so refreshing and at least pulse-racingly counter-attacking at this summer’s model.
Yet it would have seemed a travesty had they taken the European crown, just because Spain were such a pleasure to watch, envy but savour.
Bert van Marwijk’s Dutch team tonight, however, made Germany 2008 look like the Corinthian Casuals by comparison – a brutal, mean-spirited side with little intention to win by fair means instead of foul.
In fact, they didn’t seem too anxious about winning at all, save for the occasional dangerous break by Arjen Robben against an understandably-nervous Spanish defence.
Whizzkid Dutch substitute Eljero Elia, who played with an enjoyably breezy spirit in his first cameo against Denmark, was reduced to trudging back into his own half in desperate search of the ball tonight.
As for the Dutch clogs ... too many to mention, let alone for Howard Webb to keep immaculate track of, and he and his officials found themselves booed by both sets of fans.
Perhaps he could have stamped his authority – rather more constructively than the stamp of Dutch boots – earlier in the game, the very first minute indeed and the first violent rake by Robin van Persie.
The sudden spate of yellow cards he flashed midway through the first half might have been an attempt to let both sides know he’d stand no more nonsense – but if intended to calm any tetchiness, the effort backfired.
Mark van Bommel and Nigel De Jong could both have been off by half-time for their inexplicably reckless offences, and presumably they might well have been in a run-of-the-mill Premiership match.
Sending them off tonight would probably, though, have provoked protests that Webb had prematurely ‘ruined’ the biggest fixture in world football.
He had a tough task, and perhaps made himself look uncertain and manipulable in the eyes of some players – but it is the players themselves, the Dutch specifically, who should reflect with shame on a bad night out.
Little wonder Van Marwijk was so reluctant to talk tactics in the build-up to the final.
Thankfully, Spanish style triumphed in the end – and that it was the ever-modest Iniesta, as against Chelsea two years ago, who proved elusive enough before popping up in the right place. At the right time too, managing the latest ever winning strike in World Cup final history.
Diego Forlan has just been announced as winner of the Golden Ball for the tournament’s best player, a split vote beneficiary of the failure by the likes of Villa or Sneijder to dominate this evening.
The pair of holding midfielders persisted with Vicente del Bosque again tonight perhaps meant Villa was a little too isolated at times.
Spanish composure and passing around midfield is delectable as ever, and Xavi’s probing, movement and simple creativity confirmed for him my Golden Ball vote (no doubt he’s delighted).
Yet after an exhilarating opening 20 minutes, in which Spain seemed determined to confront bored critics by playing their usual way but a few gears faster, the actual penetrative service to the striker dried up a little.
No doubt the Dutch ‘tactics’ made it difficult for the Spanish to advance, whether through that narrow, cramped block around the defence – or the persistent, disruptive fouling, by turns petty and menacing.
Despite missing one extra-time sitter after replacing Alonso, Cesc Fabregas did at least increase Spanish influence further up the pitch – making a mark for the first time in his (tentative) tournament, and helping move the ball between Holland’s rigid defensive lines.
The winner, when it came, brought instinctive cries of delight and relief even across the Press box, tears from Iker Casillas and a fittingly ‘job-well-done’ conclusion to South Africa’s showcase.
The closing ceremony beforehand had been entertaining – and entertainingly concise – with its trudging white elephants (a risky image, in one of the huge new stadia), and the inevitable Shakira.
Though someone might have advised her on how to dress more aptly, considering just how chilly this evenings here turn.
The hoarsest cheers, of course, were for very special guest Nelson Mandela, who hardly looked like a man under duress as he took a scoot around the pitch in a car, and dapper Russian hat.
Relief, and joy, and admiration, and relief again were resounded across this spectacular Soccer City stadium as he made his World Cup debut at the last – before hurrying home to watch the game on television.
A wise man, perhaps, as it turned out – he might even have been tempted to start hopping the channels.
Drab as the first 90 minutes certainly were, the final was eventually compelling enough – though the Dutch violence was off-putting, and the quality of passing and especially finishing not quite up to hopes and expectations for such a grand occasion.
Yet no one appeared to care very much as the Spanish got through a clumsy trophy presentation by Sepp Blatter and sent the cup, like the fireworks, rocketing skywards above Iker Casillas’ ever-reliable arms.

Amid the exploding showers of golden glitter, the air was also heavy with dawning revelations.
Yes, just now someone’s only gone and won the World Cup. No matter how heavily-trailed and much-anticipated the moment, an immense lurch from one era to another can indeed be captured and and absorbed in one melodramatic moment.
And yes, this particular show’s now over – the planning, the partying, the fretting, the forecasting, the concerns and the carnival, the expecting and the enjoying.
The beautifully aptly-named Soccer City, so long – it’s been beyond a pleasure.
Some treasures of people put this party on – and yes, once more in the end, some good guys won.

"This time for Africa..."

WHATEVER you might have heard, not all South Africans brought vuvuzelas to games - even if sometimes they’ve felt as must-have as a pair of holding midfielders.
One odd stadium sight was a jitterbug fan in Bloemfontein, manically parping on a referee’s whistle while furiously flourishing a red card in bemused spectators’ faces.
And wearing a placard on a string around his neck, and a customised T-shirt, both begging God’s blessing upon Sepp Blatter for bringing the World Cup to South Africa.
Not for this fan the bootleg clothing produced elsewhere, bearing slogans such as ‘Fick Fufa’ or ‘MAFIFA: we own the game’ in protest at world football’s governing body and its often-clumsy commercial might.
No, he was purely, evangelically grateful to have the World Cup brought to his country, one for so long justly scorned for its retrograde racism - yet more recently suspected of not quite being fit for modern convenience.
Like the whistle-blasting Blatter fan – by turns irritating yet endearing – this has been a tournament of, if not necessarily contradictions, then at least a bemusing blend of rights and wrongs.
After the – warning, crashing cliché ahead – pristine efficiency of Germany’s World Cup four years ago, with its super-connected rail routes and throbbing city centres, South Africa 2010 was always going to be a more ramshackle and uncertain experience.
That charm and sheer difference was, of course, a large part of the attraction in what was admittedly a daring and courageous decision by Fifa – and for which the determined Sepp himself deserves credit.
Staging Africa’s first World Cup has proved more than merely symbolic, though that symbolism itself can breed not only national confidence but inward investment and beneficial social change.
Even the most ardent football fan, however, must have felt some jarring discomfort at times.
Say, when shuttling to extravagantly-built or revamped World Cup stadia past the sprawling, tented townships fogged in dual carriageway dirt – shuffled away from the logo-soaked safe tourist centres, yet not always quite out of sight.
This remains a country where rife corruption remains, to the benefit of well-connected business and political elites – both white and black – while too many schools, sanitation and above all public housing remain squalidly neglected.
Unemployment has risen to 25.2 per cent – soon to soar even further as the World Cup construction boom crumbles – while an estimated one in five people are living with HIV, hardly helped by years of healthcare under-funding and Aids denialism on high.
Tournament organisers have spent the weekend acclaiming crime rates lower than expected, despite a handful of high-profile thefts suffered by tourists, journalists and even squads such as England’s and Spain’s.
Much pre-World Cup doom-mongering about rampant gangs, dozens of murders a day and at the very least a pickpocket on every corner went well over the top, as events – or non-events – have now shown.
Most visitors have been kept not just well aware of what precautions to take, but also well away from the ‘no-go zones’ which South Africa’s middle-class, gated communities prefer to pretend not to notice.
Those criminals who have been caught have been both prosecuted and punished in quickfire, no-holds-barred fashion.
The mobile ‘World Cup courts’ established at Fifa’s behest have been handing out summary sentences of several years in jail for even minors thefts, such as swiping someone’s mobile phone or branded umbrella.
While there has been some unease about South Africa’s government changing and introducing its own laws to please Fifa, the crackdown has been widely welcomed – and the ‘World Cup courts’ look set to stay once the football has long finished.
Fifa and the tournament’s organising committee have scored their own own goals at times, too.
Aside from Blatter’s dilly-dallying over goal-line technology, no flip-flop was perhaps more needlessly embarrassing than the affair of the Bavaria Beer girls and their orange miniskirts.
Here, illustrated in conveniently photogenic form, was the counter-intuitive compulsion in Fifa and their lucrative official sponsors to not just make a decent buck from the World Cup – but seek to crush anyone with the audacity to hop on board the bandwagon.
The renegade brewer itself hardly suffered, knowing (almost) all publicity is good publicity.
But little similar solace came the way of those street-traders, native cooks or factory workers who had hoped to actually contribute and cash in on a World Cup in their own backyard for a change.
In all the fuss over the vuvuzela as the emblem of South Africa’s World Cup, green-tinged leopard mascot Zakumi has been shoved to the sidelines.
It’s perhaps even more emblematic that, far from being the must-buy toy souvenir of the tournament both here and overseas, Zakumi has been most ubiquitous as a corporate schill in adverts for Visa and telecoms giant MTN.
On the eve of the tournament, Fifa proudly announced annual profits smashing the $1million barrier for the first time, and will pocket an estimated £2.1billion from South Africa’s World Cup.
It’s hard to argue when such revenues come from marketing and TV firms who know all too well just how eagerly and vastly a worldwide audience devours a World Cup.
Then again, the football governing body’s profits are about half as much as the price paid by South African taxpayers to host Fifa’s party.
Tourist body estimates this weekend tentatively suggest foreign visitors might have pumped £1billion back into the local economy thanks to this summer’s football festival.
Such sustenance will certainly come in handy – if redirected properly – as a post-World Cup hangover of further job losses looms, especially with fears of renewed xenophobic violence in the air.
But while those who toiled to complete the vital infrastructure (just about) in time may now find themselves cast aside, albeit having scored a couple of free World Cup match tickets, at least their contributions have been literally set in stone.
World Cup-aided infrastructure is now in place, including improved highways, dazzling stadia which will have to fend off ‘white elephant warnings, and the over-budget – and almost-finished – Pretoria-Johannesburg ‘Gautrain’ railway, to be enjoyed by business commuters at least.
Schools and healthcare projects will also have been boosted, if not by direct government funding then the grass-roots efforts of voluntary organisations perhaps spurred on by the World Cup spotlight.
Such benefits come with price-tags attached – yet calculating this World Cup’s success in cold hard cash sums alone seems too reductive by far.
Trying to calculate at all, in fact, ignores the vast intangible feelgood factor involved – not simply for these five weeks of celebration, or ‘Ayoba’, but the long-lasting impact of having staged this tournament, made this statement.
The end-of-tournament report card could be written in purely ‘negative positives’, so to speak.
After all the hype, there was no al-Qaeda attack. Foreign visitors were not slaughtered in scores, whether by terrorists or more mundane local murderers. All venues were ready on time, none collapsing – only occasionally looking a little too under-filled.
The worst security mishap was not some explosive outrage, but an England fan stumbling his way to the toilet and somehow confronting team mascot David Beckham and his abject pals – an omen of just how easy German forwards would find breaking through the England defence.
And no players fell prey to the rumoured snake with enough venom in his tongue to do for two 23-man squads, as some tabloid reports hysterically predicted – though perhaps only for the sake of a ‘They think it’s all cobra’ headline.
(At the time of my writing this, anyway – apologies if the Dutch and Spanish squads have perished by poison overnight.)
Yet patronisingly judging South Africa 2010 by what mercifully hasn’t happened doesn’t feel quite right either.
A common refrain from locals, both black and white, has been how ‘unifying’ the experience has felt – some even going so far as to put it above Nelson Mandela’s release and the official anointing of a new ‘Rainbow Nation’.
Despite the vast advances in just two decades, attempts to pin down a shared South African identity appear to have frustrated many – until now.
Much has been written about football being the game of South Africa’s black majority, snubbed by the white community favouring rugby instead.
Rugby had its Invictus breakthrough with the 1995 rugby World Cup and Mandela’s determination to make it an occasion for all.
Only now, however, might football be gaining a reciprocal effect.
In new football stadia or borrowed rugby arenas, eager faces of all colours have worn makarapa helmets or novelty glasses, or been found on the end of blasting/blasted vuvuzelas.
As it should be, of course, but still surprising to some South Africans themselves.
‘Shapa Bafana Bafana’ was the rallying cry at the start of the tournament and the eruption of joy when Siphiwe Tshabalala opening this World Cup’s goalscoring – only the fifth time the hosts have ever done so – will linger long in the memory. In the eardrums, it’s maybe only now beginning to fade.
The 3-0 defeat to Uruguay came as a shock to the local system, and newspaper letter-writers still seem fiercely divided over whether Carlos Alberto Parreira deserves sympathy or scorn for not quite making the second round.
That first-round exit is a piece of unwanted history for the hosts, though the USA had worse results in 1994 only to squeak through to the knock-out stages under different rules.
But the Bloemfontein victory over France offered some valediction, as did the vivacity with which flags were still hoisted high – whether South Africa’s or, in the fellow-feeling days ahead, Ghana’s.
The South African players’ open-top bus tour through the crammed streets of Sandton, the day before the big kick-off, might have felt a little hubristic – or, conversely, unambitious, in acknowledging this might prove just ‘as good as it gets’.
Yet it did make a point, from the very start, of trying to bring the World Cup party to the people, a communal spirit so stubbornly resisted by the English camp in their Rustenburg luxury isolation.
Perhaps if England’s sulks had made more of an effort to engage with actual South Africa, Wayne Rooney might not have made such a churlish fool of himself with his boo-boy-baiting tantrum.
Maybe they might not have performed any more coherently, but then, Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk has made much of his team’s throbbing Johannesburg base – while managing to stick around until today’s Soccer City showdown, inflammable egos (so far) kept in check.
This chilly winter World Cup has offered the warmest of welcomes – everywhere smiles, politeness and enthusiasm to just chat about anything, just so long as it’s football.
Even those on security duty at the stadia themselves have been hail-fellow-well-met – for the most part, anyway – whether those under-contract, under-paid stewards or the police hordes brought in at times as replacements.
The walk-outs at four stadia – Johannesburg’s Ellis Park, Durban’s Moses Mabhida, Cape Town’s Green Point and Port Elizabeth’s Nelson Mandela Bay – actually made negligible difference to those making their way in and out of matches.
The most damaging impact was on the exploited staff themselves, paid even less than the meagre amounts first promised.
Again, the affair said little for billion-dollar boasters Fifa, who depressingly battled harder to pass the buck than step in and speak up for those toiling to keep their own show on the road.
Hard-working ordinary Africans, that is, those supposed to be this World Cup’s biggest winners – or, at least, the most gratified.
But just try taking away from what’s been done – what’s been, above all, fun. Three million people have made it through the turnstiles and helped make this a World Cup experience to remember and cherish.
A World Cup experience that really has been like no other.
Some 700million worldwide should tune in to tonight’s climax, many of whom may have gained only limited impression of what it’s meant to be here, or have the World Cup here, beyond that inevitable, incessant soundtrack drone.
For many, the World Cup will live on most in TV replays of Forlan, Villa or even unlucky Lampard strikes, or raging debates about where England, Italy or Brazil go from here, whether 4-4-2 can rise again or how to play like Spain rather than Switzerland.
But as pumped-up politicians here set set ambitious sights on the 2020 or 2024 Olympics, while London senses all attention now turning to our own, South Africa can reflect with relief on this summer’s refreshing success.
For all the fears, South Africa 2010 has been a declaration of not just competence but confidence, an exhilirating setting for that most seriously frivolous and frivolously serious pursuit of all: football.
And now that real referee’s whistle has finally blown, Sepp, Fifa and the World Cup-watching world can give some thanks back to South Africa for that.

"And so, the end is near..."

A few flippant thoughts/awards - more serious(-ish) reflections to come...

Best goal: Siphiwe Tshabalala’s tournament opener set the vibrant tone, even if Kagisho Dikgacoi soon abandoned the intricate through-passing for simply kicking people.
Best shot: David Villa’s opportunistic curler against Chile, Carlos Tevez’s (onside) effort versus Mexico, or Wesley Sneijder’s semi-final strike that didn’t go in – but did wallop into his pal Robin van Persie.
Worst miss: Durban-born Chilean Mark Gonzalez’s gravity-defying loft with the scores 0-0 against Spain, finishing worthy of the ‘Bafana Bafana’ instead.

Coaches most in need of a decent night’s sleep: Honours even between Slovakia’s Vladimir Weiss, Ghana’s Milovan Rajevac and Paraguay’s Gerard Martino, each looking like they’ve lived a hard life – or at least hard living the night before. Punchy Weiss even invited a journalist outside, Rajevac appears a contender to play Rigsby in a Rising Damp remake, and Martino rivals for Jose Antonio Camacho as ‘World’s Sweatiest Manager’.

Best stadium: The spectacularly modern Moses Mabhida in Durban or the grittily old-fashioned Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
Worst stadium: The Royal Bafokeng in Rustenburg – maybe it’s the surrounding roads and their puncture-causing potholes. Or the surrounding athletics track and the distance from the pitch. Or just the ordeal of watching England play the USA.

Best vuvuzela use: The fan watching Cameroon-Denmark who somehow managed to make his sound like the ominous stabs of saxophone from Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver soundtrack.
Worst vuvuzela use: The Argentine hooligans caught using theirs to store grenades.

Least likely midfield destroyer: Ghana’s hard-working – if hardly intimidating – Anthony Annan. Looking like you might as well play Lionel Messi or Shaun Wright-Phillips in the holding role., And you won’t often find those two together in the same sentence.

Best parkers of the bus: Switzerland, obviously. Though the South African team coach that got stuck in Sandton traffic, almost delaying the opening match, came close.

Most misleading omen: The incessant airings of ‘God Save The Queen’ in the empty Soccer City stadium, a day before the tournament began.
Most out-of-touch officials: Fifa delegates meeting on the eve of the tournament tried testing their electronic voting pads with the simple question, are Italy the defending world champions? Seven voted no. Though by the end of the first round, it was easy to forget – or at least hard to believe.

Impartial punditry: The US journalist in the Rustenburg media centre before his compatriots kicked off against America - tucking into a sandwich while wearing full Captain America costume.

Most baffling imagery: Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning midfield craftsman Gerson condemned Dunga, saying: ‘He couldn’t train a team of bottle-tops.’ What?

Worst penalty run-up: John Mensah, the struggling gait of an arthritic.
Best penalty run-up: Cuauhtemoc Blanco, the long-distance surge of a fast bowler.
Finest-quality penalties: The shoot-out between Miss World contestants representing the eight quarter-finalists, swapping world peace for World Cup aspirations. Or else, (almost) all those taken by Japan and Paraguay - pity about the 120 minutes beforehand.

Most popular substitutes: Blanco, Stephen Appiah, and Cesc Fabregas, cheered wildly for each cameo.
Least popular substitutes: Thierry Henry, booed roundly in Bloemfontein – even though the place’s alternative name, Mangaung, does mean ‘land of the cheetahs’.

Clearest refereeing decision actually given correctly: Argentina’s disallowed goal against Germany, with almost as many players caught offside as Maradona picked during qualifiers. Or the several handballs given against a Serbia team who appeared to believe we were playing ‘rush-goalie’.

Moral dilemma man of the moment: Luis Suarez. Not necessarily for his handball – and revelries – against Ghana, but his reckless leap into the photographers’ pit after scoring against South Korea. Yes, someone could have been scalped – but then again, they were only snappers.

Richest hypocrites: Diego Maradona complaining about Luis Fabiano’s handball, Dunga whingeing about Ivory Coast’s persistent fouling, and Bastian Schweinsteiger raising eyebrows at Argentine play-acting.

Modesty blazers: Felipe Melo, daftly nonchalant even after single-handedly (and single-headedly, and single-stamping-footedly) destroying his own team Brazil – insisting he would have deserved ten out of ten had Brazil gone on to win, but was adjusting himself down to a (still-generous) six.
Or Nicolas Bendtner, who got very uppity at Sebastian Bassong almost tugging his shirt off. Presumably because he prefers publicly undressing himself.

England’s success of the tournament: Michael Dawson. While team-mates griped about being bored, he actually got out and about and visited local townships and a deprived youngster he sponsored. When not sitting happily in his hotel room, contented with colouring books.
England’s failure of the tournament: Amid a crowded field, expectations multiplied by abjectness must mean Wayne Rooney. It’s nice to see your own players boring you.
England’s gravest mistake: Taking too few Tottenham players – Jermain Defoe’s goal against Slovenia was Spurs’ 184th for England, more than any other club. The six in the squad could and should have been bolstered by the likes of Huddlestone. Jenas. Woodgate. Hoddle, Roberts, Perryman, Peters, Chas, Dave…

Saddest shadows of their former fab(io) selves: Cannavaro and Capello, neither one any longer quite so cool and composed.
Breaths of fresh air: Thomas Müller, a Platt-style poacher who also showed the baffling good grace to shake hands with the ref who had foolishly ruled him out of the semi-final. Slovakia’s troublesome target-man Robert Vittek, who left Italy clueless – only to be left clubless by former employers Lille. Japan’s Jabulani-taming Keisuke Honda.

Fashion statements of the season: Ghana’s Melchester Rovers tribute kit, those orange miniskirts, or the anti-authority T-shirts bearing slogans such as ‘Fick Fufa’ or ‘MafiFa: We own the game’.

Jauntiest anthems: The trilling trumpets of Brazil’s, or the emphatic climax to Paraguay’s, the kind that really does demand fireworks – and picnic hampers – on a summer’s evening in the park.

Hissiest fit: Perhaps the dust-up a mere 15 seconds into USA-Slovenia, prompted by an errant Clint Dempsey elbow. Or else Garth Crooks’s petulant prima donna act, when trying to wrench Howard Webb from a pack of print hacks.

Cheekiest chutzpah: The Argentine hooligans – yes, more – who were staying at a Christian studies college in Pretoria before being raided and deported. Or the Argentine centre-back Martin Demichelis, taunting John Terry by saying he wouldn’t be allowed home if he defended as the ex-England captain had done against Germany. After Demichelis’ own performance against the same opposition, his plane’s presumably still hovering, the pilot told to go round (the world) again.

Shoddiest pre-World Cup predictions: Brazil to win, Italy to reach the final, and North Korea to hold Portugal goalless... At least David Villa could still win the Golden Boot – though not with two separate hat-tricks, as I had also suggested.

Best games: Slovakia 3 Italy 2, Ghana 1 Uruguay 1, Spain 1 Germany 0. And Denmark 2 Cameroon 1, proof a game can be awesome despite – or perhaps due to – both teams being awful.
Biggest regrets: Not being able to attend Argentina games. Being able to attend England games. The fact it’s now almost all over.

Team of the tournament (elite): Neuer (Germany); Lahm (Germany), Heitinga (Netherlands), Puyol (Spain), Fucile (Uruguay); Müller (Germany), Schweinsteiger (Germany), Sneijder (Netherlands); Iniesta (Spain), Forlan (Uruguay), Villa (Spain).
Almost team of the tournament (second tier): Kingson (Ghana); Maicon (Brazil), Nelsen (New Zealand), Carvalho (Portugal), Salcido (Mexico); Donovan (USA), Annan (Ghana), Vidal (Chile); Messi (Argentina), Vittek (Slovakia), Robinho (Brazil).
Anti-team of the tournament: Chaouchi (Algeria); Cha Du-Ri (South Korea), Mokoena (South Africa), Bassong (Cameroon), Evra (France); Barry (England); Kewell (Australia), Marchisio (Italy), Felipe Melo (Brazil); Rooney (England), Anelka (Brazil).

"I'm the Durban spaceman, baby..."

ANDRES Iniesta had predicted this would be a ‘beautiful battle’, but perhaps the interpreter should have translated that as ‘attractive attrition’.
Seldom can wearing an opponent relentlessly down be as compelling as Spain make it, despite what a tentatively-restless backlash from some quarters might be suggesting.
Another 1-0 win, with the goal coming late, tonight put Spain into their first World Cup final – ensuring a new name would be on the trophy at the end of their game against the Netherlands on Sunday.
Yet unlike previous underwhelming performances this summer, this win over Germany – the second half especially – suggested tiki-taka is finally ticking over just right.
The goal that put Spain in their first World Cup final might have been rather basic, when it came.
Carles Puyol’s header was about as emphatic as can be, walloping the ball into the net and almost sending opponents – and team-mates – splaying all the way with it.
A few late crosses aside, Germany had little answer – either to the goal or Spain’s overall control.
Vicente del Bosque’s side looked classy and composed all over, with Sergio Busquets getting everywhere – but always usefully, this time – and Xavi gradually re-locating his range.
Germany’s counter-attacking was contained, with Lahm and Boateng kept pinned back and Ozil either kept isolated between Klose and the four-man midfield or else pickpocketed by the busy Busquets.
At times this summer Spain’s lovely passing has lacked a little joy – as if, while retaining the first ‘slow-slow’ part, they’d mislaid somehow the following ‘quick-quick’ bit.
That looked again the case during the first half, though the passing was mostly shorter and a little less sloppy in earlier matches.
Pedro’s inclusion for the infirm and out-of-form Fernando Torres suggested a little more width in the Spanish attack, and he did keep dizzyingly switching positions with both Andres Iniesta and David Villa up-front.
Yet the Spanish midfield and attack were willing to pack tight for much of the time too, especially whenever Germany tried to break out from their own defence.
The German full-backs had little space to manoeuvre, Piotr Trochowski contributed little – certainly none of the prolific peskiness of Thomas Mueller – and Bastian Schweinsteiger’s compound role tonight involved plenty more tackling than attacking.
Villa could be seen losing his rag as Xavi, Iniesta or Pedro would fail by inches to quite find the right through-pass, but the second half brought a little more pace and precision.
And two thrilling minutes on the hour mark could have brought Spain three goals, the high-point being Xabi Alonso’s backheel, Iniesta’s nimble dribble and the agonising whistle of ball just beyond Villa’s studs.
Here was football no longer simply easy on the eye, and fodder for the brain – but also enough to send the heart surging into the mouth.
Which now waters at the thought of a truly colourful Sunday ahead.
Following, of course, Saturday’s contractual obligation, that at least gives retro-philes a Seventies World Cup rematch after all - just not a repeat of the ’74 final, but the third-place play-off from four years earlier.
By contrast, the Spanish and Dutch have never clashed at a World Cup before – perhaps apt, when hearing the King of Spain tributes in the Netherlands’ national anthem.
Spain’s, of course, is lyric-less – despite witless wordsmiths’ valiant efforts in recent years.
But if their players can improve even on tonight’s slick display, then Wesley Sneijder will have to be at his decisive best – or Mark Van Bommel his destructive worst – if the Dutch aren’t to be the ones struck dumb.

"Beside the seaside, beside the sea..."

THE ATTRACTIVE arch under which Spain and Germany play tonight makes Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium a little like Wembley.
The three years flat in which the city’s old venue was knocked down and the new one knocked up rather ends the resemblance.
It was a bit of a frantic rush job to top them out in time, but South Africa’s World Cup stadia have proved finer – and longer-lasting – performers than the host nation’s players.
The big question now is: how can they be filled in future?
After all, it’s been trouble enough filling them for World Cup semi-finals – though any orange seats empty this Sunday should at least blend in with the crowd.
Soccer City in Johannesburg is already planning for a future that involves not just international football, but domestic rugby.
The country’s most popular rugby club, the Blue Bulls, contested one pre-World Cup match in the stadium.
In return, the national ‘Bafana Bafana’ football team prepared for the competition with a friendly at the Blue Bulls’ apparently-iconic home, Pretoria’s Loftus Versfeld.
Now the national rugby heroes, the Springboks, are lining up a Soccer City clash with New Zealand's All Blacks next month - perhaps bringing with them the ‘penalty goals’ some felt should have been awarded there when Luis Suarez handballed.
Compared to the sleek yet slightly insipid new stadia at Polokwane and Rustenburg, the old-fashioned rugby grounds ‘borrowed’ for this tournament have offered some of the most exciting vibes.
Wasted on rugby, really.
Loftus Versfeld and Johannesburg’s Ellis Park may lack modernistic elegance, but do boast bulk, straight lines and intensity.
Plus, they don’t double up with already-existing oval-ball strongholds, unlike the controversial new – but Table Mountain-friendly - World Cup stadium in Cape Town and its neglected neighbour Newlands.
The Moses Mabhida, on the other hand, is both spectacular and spine-tingling - while also fitting into a coherent forward plan for sporting showcases.
The ground sits just across the road from international rugby and athletics venues, part of the Kings Park sporting complex – and just a few Kevin Pietersen slogs from the Sahara Stadium that staged the 2003 cricket World Cup.
Little wonder that now a newly-confident South Africa is talking up an Olympics bid, Durban looks the most likely local candidate for 2020 or 2024.
That cluster of top-class sporting venues is even more compact than Stratford’s 2012 Olympic park (and without the threat of West Ham wanting to squat).
And while Brazil’s footballers have this month found themselves playing at 3C in Johannesburg and 25C in Cape Town, Durban in August is one of the surer bets for August Olympic sunshine.
Even if today’s unseasonally snippy winds and grey drizzle made the genteel architecture and palm-lined seafront feel less like Marine Parade, Durban - more Marine Parade, Worthing.

"Gold against the soul..."

AFTER the curse of ‘Goldenballs’ might have struck his England pals – and Andy Murray – a different Golden Ball jinx looms over those in Soccer City this Sunday.
At the last three World Cups, the man voted best player has suffered a memorably forgettable final – making Fifa’s post-match announcement more poignant than triumphant.
In 1998, it was Ronaldo, suffering a fit before his Brazil offered pitiful resistance to the French.
Four years later he thrived as Germany’s Golden Ball – and Golden Gloves – winning goalkeeper Oliver Kahn turned butterfingers at the last.
And in 2006 Zinedine Zidane, having hauled even a Raymond Domenech-led France to the final, then butted them back out of the reckoning against Italy.
The rush to anoint this summer’s stand-out star has been frenetic from the start.
Pity poor Keisuke Honda, Alexis Sanchez or even Lionel Messi, as early bouquets brutally withered in popular consensus – or the unpopular Press.
Germany, whatever Wednesday night’s result, can at least count on a second successive prize for best young player.
Four years ago Lukas Podolski’s three goals, glimmers of brilliance and home favouritism put him above a scratchy field of Antonio Valencia, Cristiano Ronaldo and, er, that’s about it.
This time he and 25-year-old, 78-cap Bastian Schweinsteiger are almost gnarly elder statesmen in a German side faced with slicing the statuette in half for Thomas Müller and Mesut Özil.
But Mueller’s absence this evening is doubly unfortunate –semi-finals are the games that help clinch the bigger, round baubles, good news for Schweinsteiger or Spain’s David Villa.
Better news for Wesley Sneijder, who may have again been quiet for patches of tonight’s win over Uruguay – despite starting the first half of the first half in startlingly tenacious, pressing mood – but got good and slightly lucky with another crucial goal.
(Nice of his pal Robin van Persie to leave the ball, as it passed … if that’s indeed what he meant. Or if indeed it was legal. Both points debatable.)
Sadder news for Diego Forlan, whose passing looked a little off at times this evening, but who cut a dashing figure throughout even while shoved further forward and deprived of Luis Suarez – and scored with another swooshing shot, aided a little by a goalkeeper’s limp wrist.
Alternative contenders who seem surprisingly popular here in South Africa include usually-unfashionable full-backs such as Germany’s hollow-eyed Philipp Lahm or Spain’s wild-eyed Sergio Ramos.
He was a rare subdued Spaniard at Euro 2008, but has been a rampaging asset here – pause for thought, perhaps, for even Jose Mourinho as he ponders shifting him back into the middle in Madrid.
Other outsiders could yet include Iker Casillas, after that penalty save against Paraguay proved Sara Carbanero’s not his only impressive catch.
But he’d presumably prefer to lift another gold prize instead – and show he can do what Oliver Kahn couldn’t.
*
Today’s long drive south to Durban – from bitter to balmy, scorched fields to verdant valleys, mountainous heights to ear-popping sea level – evoked more memories of that 2006 tournament.
If only because after passing familiar-sounding places such as Heidelberg or Frankfort, Durban city centre was decked in German flags and welcomes of ‘Wilkommen’.
Perhaps every other team received similar tribute, though the only others still fluttering were for South Africa itself and long-departed Japan.
Viel Glück, perhaps, for Germany and ominous for those like myself who could happily watch Spain pass the phonebook.
Yet while Joachim Löw might cling to that treasured blue sweater – though tentacled turncoat Paul The Octopus now snubs his adopted Vaterland - tactics and technique should tonight mean more than signs and lucky charms.
Whoever does make the final, however, should maybe cross their fingers they can dodge that Golden Ball – let alone bump into doom-laden David Beckham.