Internationals / Jonathan Wilson / 26 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Jonathan Wilson is full of praise for Brazil's growing habit of winning matches they are struggling to dominate but has less kind words reserved for the organisers responsible for parking at yesterday's match.

So Brazil are fallible too. After the high of their performance in the 3-0 win over Italy, last night's semi-final win over South Africa was far less fluent. Here was Dunga's pragmatic streak at its most cussed, as his team absorbed waves of South African pressure before
winning with an 88th-minute free-kick from Dani Alves.

Another late goal from a set play to go with Kaka's last-minute penalty against Egypt; they may be breaking African hearts, but Brazil have developed a pleasing habit of winning games that seem to be slipping away from them. And that, of course, is precisely Dunga's
point: when it comes to a technical battle he would always expect Brazil to prevail; what he has added is an edge for when things aren't going for them. There is that most indefinable quality about them: they are winners [and are [1.19] to win the Confederations Cup; [6.0] to
win the World Cup].

Credit, though, must go to South Africa. Their coach, Joel Santana, had promised to attack, and his side did. They rarely looked penetrative, and were reduced in the main to long-range efforts, but they were at least able to play the game largely in Brazil's half.
They frustrated their more illustrious opponents just as surely as USA had Spain, but in a very different way. Where USA sat deep and ensured Spain were unable to pass through them, South Africa took the alternate approach, pressing and driving Brazil back.

In that regard, it will be fascinating to see how USA approach a final they are [5.3] to win: will they adopt the same tactics as they did against Spain, or will they take note of South Africa's relative success? If only Aaron Mokoena had buried that early header, there
might have been another shock. Perhaps just as significantly, South Africa have shown
far more gumption than most expected: the fears that they will embarrass themselves in next summer's World Cup (they are [120.0 to win it) should have receded.

The second semi-final, sadly, was the first match at which I've experienced truly shambolic organisation. Parking passes are distributed to the media for each game and - in theory - should be tightly controlled so that only as many passes are given out as there are spaces. After all, the last thing anybody wants to do is battle through the Johannesburg
rush hour only to be told to go away again and try to find safe parking somewhere in the surrounds of Ellis Park (which is as good as impossible: to leave a hire car in Hillbrow would be like leaving a wallet on the pavement beneath a sign reading "help yourself").

But that's what happened to us yesterday. "Media parking is full,"
said a surly steward - the first I've met in this tournament - on the
gate. We badgered him, and then his silent mate, and eventually they
opened the gate, as we promised to return if we couldn't find a space.
Inside, we found an unstewarded mess, with two cars occupying enough
space for three, and other vehicles parked haphazardly on the grass
and in the shrubbery. In the end, we found a driver who was prepared
to let us park behind him - effectively blocked in, although given we
were likely to leave after him it didn't matter that much.

Now this really shouldn't be problematic. Traffic is inevitable, and
the organisers have my sympathy in dealing with that. But parking
passes should be simple, and if certain stewards can't be bothered to
sort them out properly, then you fear what other problems may be in
store when hundreds of thousands of foreign fans descend on South
Africa next summer. And yet inside the stadium, tops were removed from
water-bottles with great assiduousness. Which is fair enough, but is
surely a lesser issue than parking. When everything else has run so
smoothly, it would be a terrible shame the tournament should let
itself down in the final straight.

Ellis Park may carry a sense of history - one of the encouraging
aspects of the tournament is that each stadium has a distinct
identity, which wasn't necessarily the case in Germany three years ago
- but it is also the least welcoming of the venues I've been to.