I doff my heart to South Africa and the USA for making the just ended Confederations Cup all that exciting. When South Africa failed to qualify for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, the feeling in football circles was that they were going to waste everybody’s time by hosting the World Cup. But Brazilian coach Tele Santana’s explanation that his boys would soon mature has been proved right at the Confederation Cup when they exhibited good brand of football only to miss the bronze medal by a whisker.

Against Spain, the European champions, South Africa played a superlative game matching their opponents in all aspects of the game. They were cruising to a memorable 1-0 win but it was a loss of concentration that gave Spain two quick goals in the dying minutes to turn the scales in their favour.Coach Santana would however be proud of the equalizing free kick that sent the game into extra time. You could see that the kick came straight from the textbook in Rio de Janeiro.

Even though another free kick gave Spain the winner in extra time, judging from the performance of South Africa throughout the tournament notably the semi final against Brazil, the football world has been told in plain language that South Africa will be a force to reckon with in the 2010 World Cup. They won’t be passive hosts.

Sports lovers usually have a soft spot for underdogs, for it is said that without surprise results, sports will cease to be exciting. That may be the reason why the USA team had a lot of backing to win the cup. Having dismissed Spain, the Europeans champions and Italy the world champions, it would have fit into the script to dethrone the cup holders and five times world champions Brazil.

And it was true to their new status as giant killers that USA took a commanding 2-0 lead against Brazil but it is also an axiom in sports that champions died hard. So Brazil rose to the occasion and rattled in three goals to retain the trophy they won four years ago. It could have been four if the referee had allowed a header by Kaka which was caught right in the net by US goalie Tim Howard. TV replays clearly showed that the whole circumference of the ball had clearly crossed the line. It showed good sportsmanship that Brazil did not make too much fuss of this incident at a time they were a goal down.

This is surely good for the game and it is hoped all sports practitioners would learn to accept defeat in good faith. From what we saw on TV, the 2009 Confederations Cup was a huge success. The world says Africa is full of surprises no wonder the first Confederations Cup to be staged in Africa produced a lot of surprises which is an indication that all must watch for even more surprises in the first World Cup to be staged in Africa in 2010.

Thank you South Africa for giving the football world such a surprise package both on and off the field. Give us more in 2010.

Cheers everybody and keep loving sports