Soccer Laduma Blog By Peter Du Toit: Soccer Laduma in Brazil…

Brazil are through to the next round and the South American hosts have a new hero. Neymar has taken all the pressure and expectation of a nation and delivered. All of a sudden comparisons to Pele don't seem that farfetched. The big question now is, can he take this form into the knock-out stages and carry 'A Selecao' all the way to the finish line?   This week Soccer Laduma's Peter du Toit shares his second week of World Cup fever, straight from the heart of Brazil.     Day Seven - Rio:    Our potential excitement at getting to Rio in time to watch the Brazil v Mexico game in the Fan Park turned to disappointment. Our flight was delayed by three hours and, by the time we arrived at our guest house, we only managed to catch the last 30 minutes of the game on the TV in our room.    Our guest house is situated at the start of a favela (slum), but it's safe. Rio is unbelievable but very expensive! A simple chicken and rice meal can cost you over R200 in a Spur-type restaurant. It's a spectacular place with huge stretches of beach, a great atmosphere and, of course with the World Cup, an incredible soccer vibe. This is football heaven.    Everywhere you look there is football: fans from all over the world, football fields on the beach, people playing 'keepy uppy' on the sidewalks and bars filled with fans watching the games on big screen TV's.    A couple of interesting things also happened. One of these is that whenever people ask us where we're from and we say South Africa, they seem surprised that we're here without a team to support! At times I've felt like an uninvited guest. One Rio taxi driver burst out laughing when we said Bafana Bafana and then he said 'Santana' and started laughing again. Talking about Santana, he's in loads of ads for their local cellular network. He seems to be a cult comedy figure here!    Everyone here also seems to know about Cape Town and they've all heard how beautiful it is.   Another amazing observation is that most of the apartment blocks, especially in Salvador, have floodlit five-aside courts for the residents to play on. Even in Rio there are five-aside courts everywhere with people playing. It would be amazing if we had that in SA.   Day Eight - Spain v Chile:    We're incredibly excited to be going to one of the biggest and most iconic stadiums in the world, the Maracana. The 30-minute journey on the underground metro started off with some fun. A large group of Chilean fans boarded the train, chanting and singing. The journey ended quite scarily, though, as thousands of fans forced their way onto the trains, despite the fact that they were already packed to capacity. It became quite dangerous as the last 10 minutes of the journey were suffocating.    Getting from the train to the stadium was chaotic as a police line was causing huge queues for no reason whatsoever. Once we got to our gate, it was plain sailing getting in.    Remnants of the old 200 000-seater Maracana Stadium have been preserved for posterity. After being seated, we experienced some of the greatest football moments I've ever had. I'd say the stadium was 70 percent full of Chile fans. It was a mass of red! And they sang and chanted louder and longer than any fans I've ever heard, anywhere. The singing of their national anthem made my hair stand on end. This also made me realise very strongly that the vuvuzela is a poor substitute for passionate singing and chanting.   Black market tickets for this game were going for R20 000! Some would argue it would have been well worth it.   Day Nine – Raining in Rio:    Today it was pouring with rain in Rio. We watched the England v Uruguay game in a little bar. An amazing thing is that whoever you were sitting next to in a bar, no matter what part of the world you are from, you immediately become friends. Another incredible thing is the amount of Americans here - they're everywhere! They make up 33 percent of all the foreign fans at the World Cup.   Day Ten - Fan Fest:    This fan fest has to be one of the best-situated of any World Cup ever. It's right on Copacabana beach - a truly beautiful setting. It was well - organized and filled with fans from all over the world.   Afterwards we walked back along the beach. There were soccer games going on everywhere. On the boardwalk alongside the beach there were a number of makeshift TV studios set up. There were also famous soccer players all over the place, Thierry Henry and Rio Ferdinand to name a few.   Later that evening I bumped into Frenchman, Claude Leroy, the former Cameroon coach.   My overriding impression from Brazil of the World Cup is that the South American fans have made it special, and that football is one of the strongest energies that unites everyone on this planet!   Peter Du Toit   Click Here To Watch Day 10 - Fan Fest