JC: Well, guys, here we sit. My son watched in UAE, where he currently works. He is SA born, & a supporter of cricket, rugby and soccer. Raised partly in England, his friends are mostly soccer fans.

What do you think? Are Bafana-Bafana ‘goal-oriented’? Are they in it for the girls? Are they poor travellers? Are they just flouerig? Should we rename them ‘The Hasies?’

PM: Eish Mr Cook. Owing to an incident in his kid days that left his right leg buggered, Mayaba here could never make much of a soccer or rugby player, for that matter. When other kids would start knocking a soccer ball around, he’d always mysteriously disappear off into the game arcade or to hang around the birds. Be that as it may, he once found himself forced into playing rugby by some whitie teacher: fullback for the u/13Cs, thank you very much.

First, I hated every minute of it. I felt ill-suited, embarrassed - a filler because there was no one else. Then… At interschools, biggest match of the year for any team, any player. He must’ve smoked a joint the scrumhalf as he popped the ball to a limping Mayaba, full speed on the blindside all the way from the halfway line. You should’ve seen it: bulky whitie boys all tryina nail Mayaba - tackle him to touch on the left side. On the right, a crowd of parents, subs, learners running alongside all cheering wildly, screaming my name. There is no way I was gonna let anyone catch me, get in the way of that small moment of glory. They didn’t. From that day, I’ve always preferred rugby, even though I don’t say so out loud at the shebeen.

DN: Football is a very integral part of my life. Add books and music to it, and my world is complete. That’s the world I was born in, and for me it’s like utopia.

As a kid if I weren’t in class or Church, I was certainly playing or watching football.

In fact at 14 I was almost compelled to choose between schooling and football. But first because I was passionate about both, and secondly because everyone thought my prospects in them were bright, a special arrangement was made for me to continue pursuing both. (I had been selected in a national competition to enter the elite football academy in Cameroon, the same one that produced African champions like Samuel Eto, Rigobert Song, etc.)

Thus for 7 years I spent all my school holidays in this academy, scarcely seeing my family or even spending time with them. From school to the academy, from the academy back to school. That’s how my teenage years were spent.

I’ve never played rugby in my life. I never even watched nor understood it until I came to SA.

In fact I’m in SA today because of school and football. I chose to study in SA because of the 2010 Fifa WC.

Music fills most of the gaps in-between the two.

MO: OK OK . Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say plenty more. There is, I may admit, rather than gnashing bashing and gryp & escape, a certain long term broad view angle to a round ball version of a beautiful game. However, that often seems higher to scale than any walls beyond Mexico: surely also Spain, and then surely (thinks I) Iran, deserve to be more in the running than the Verde conglomerates or the silver ferns, on showings? Only a trump would tackle me on such. But allow me , imaginatively dartingly quick, to pass the round spin on.

JC: Spoken like a true fly-half. I don’t have a TV, so am the least able to comment. But we used to have a saying in the music world: They are in it for one of three reasons: 1) girls 2) money 3) passion.

As for playing soccer, we played both rugger and soccer in prep school. In winter I would turn out as right-half for Shamrocks FC under 11. Our coach was the Town Clerk, a Mr McFarlane. I was not picked for rugby, and I didn’t care.

At high school, well, Maritzburg College is a “rugby school”. The game was compulsory for everyone. I did not enjoy that, so I refused to play. That is another story.

Mr Osler, your name means rugby: I hope I do not diminish myself with this rugby-poor confession? And we are all very diplomatic. Nobody wants to comment on my son’s “burning building” comment. Can they step up from “boys-boys” to “men-men”?

DN: 2010 was a completely different story: Tshabalala scored, Africa danced. Whoever was next to you you hugged them, and celebrated together.

Fast forward 16 years: the same June 11, the same Mexico, and the same occasion—a WC curtain raiser, but the headlines, the vibe, the national mood, are stark different.

Mexico’s El Tri demolished SA’s Bafana Bafana 2-0.

There was no Tshabalala this time, no heroes, only villains: Sithole and Zwane were red-carded. Williams was guilty of starting play inside the box, and coach Broos was criticized for a highly defensive squad and formation.

On the whole, it was a very disappointing opening for Africa, nothing compared to the Bokke’s performances.

PM: Seems like we are no longer dealing with “a bunch of losers” now. On social media, I have asked anybody who’s ever hopped on that term to take it back. As in right now.

DN: I thought the Bafana/Bokke stoeptalk would remain open throughout the World Cup, or at least for as long as Bafana Bafana remains in the competition.

[Thanks Mr Nde, I agree, so this remains until ’no more vuvuzelas’]. Ed.

I think it is a most seasonable subject for such an engagement, seeing that Bafana Bafana did not only win their last game against South Korea but have progressed to the knockout stages for the first time in Fifa World Cup history—A PHENOMENAL IMPROVEMENT from their opening game. Very few thought it probable. Everyone has heard or read about it, and is talking about it. Everyone wants to hear or read what others are saying about it. And everyone wants to predict or form an opinion about how far Bafana Bafana will go. From taxis to tuckshops, from social media to the stoeps, this is what now enraptures people. These are exciting times for “The Boys”, for football lovers, and for the nation as whole.

PM: Taking nothing away from the team’s accomplishment, the social aspects of it have given us an interesting glimpse. Not to be long-winded. Anti-immigration here. Madlanga there. I think the victory was what God ordered to take our minds away from everything else. If the resets and respites don’t come from where they should, I’m just glad that they come at all.

JC: On to Knockouts is a huge & wondrous surprise. I didn’t watch. Keeping SK out of the goal mouth is definitely getting defence right! How was their attack? Did they get (m)any near-goals before the one they netted?