Some things are awesome, and most of those things are called World Cup football. Now, now, I know a decent amount of my blogging clientelle are from Mexico, and I hold nothing against you since at least you are not from Canada, but for the next few paragraphs please understand why your soccer team has done everything in its power to try and ruin the entire World Cup. Or so I thought at the time.

No one wanted Mexico to win. No one. Not France, not the United States, not even the DPRK. Okay, I'm sure some people from the Texan territory of Mexico wanted Mexico to win, but let's be honest: they're alone. These are AFRICA'S games, SOUTH AFRICA'S games, and Mexico was trying to steal from everyone else what was rightfully there's: a win in the first game of the World Cup. And like Duke basketball and the poachers in Bambi, the villain won, or at least drew, much to the chagrin of every other decent person on Earth.

Here I am in a country wrought with racial turmoil for decades and yet again sport was bringing everyone together. I saw white South African football fans chest-pumping black South African soccer fans, hands on each other's shoulders chanting “Ole! Ole, ole, ole! Ole! Ole!” over and over again. I heard screams of "Bafana Bafana!" left and right, thousands of teenagers and young adults blowing into their horns to the tune of the national anthem or to no tune at all, just pure jubilation. I heard “OOOOOHHHHHHHHH” and “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” more times than Fox News has claimed to be Fair & Balanced while airing its own online poll as scientific proof that the Obama administration has mishandled the spoiled pudding crisis in Des Plaines, Ill. And then I heard silence when Rafael Marquez put away a brilliant ball in from Andres Guardado and even more silence when Katlega Mphela was denied by the woodwork in the dying minutes of the match. Certainly Mexico had ruined everyone's fun.

But nonetheless, the party resumed at full time, the horns yet again blown at full-throttle, a horde of car horns being “hooted” in unison with the plastic ones from the passersby, and millions of exstatic people of all races, ages and nationalities cheering that South Africa had managed to salvage a point against CONCACAF's most storied federation.

Which brings me back to my first point. This is Africa's games, Africa's World Cup, but it is also the world's. Most of the favorites, from England to France to Spain to Italy to Germany to Portugal, were imperialist powers, and through both stubborn racism and a misplaced sense of duty held on to their stranglehold over Africa in some cases well into the 1970s. And even in South Africa, the regime that had taken over at independence kept the dictatorial reign in place for a further two decades until the dawn of the 1990s. Yet in many cases Africa is emerging now in the world despite the fierce detrimental remains of imperialism, and for 90 minutes today Africa and as a result the world emerged on the pitch too.

It was a shame that Mexico stole Bafana Bafana's hard earned almost-victory from their teeths, but in the end nothing would steal victory from their hearts. South Africa may not have won the match, but even had they been defeated, which thankfully did not happen, there was no way South Africa would have lost. Had the score been 10-1 to Mexico, there would have been no less horn blowing, no less chants of Bafana Bafana, no less jubilation. The game was a victory for South Africa, a victory for Africa, a victory for the world, regardless of whether it was victory in the Group A table.

It might not been the most fitting scoreline at full time, but it was not the scoreline that told the story. I thought Mexico was trying to ruin the match when Marquez equalized, but I was wrong. No matter what happened, South Africa was still victorious. That's what I will remember. That's what I will one day tell my children.

P.S. I will attach pictures in a few minutes