It's true that soccer is a language everyone understands, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who plays it understands each other!
Just ask some of the South African journalists at Algeria’s pre-match conference on Sunday.
They said the pre-match conferences in Group C, Bafana Bafana’s group, were a nightmare, as it was a free-for-all with no translators or even a public address system.
As a result, people had to huddle together and get as close as possible to the main table to hear what coaches and captains were saying.
And to make matters worse, journalists then started asking questions in their own languages – Arabic and French, to be exact. Orange Africa Cup of Nations (Caf) officials did nothing to bring the situation under control.
As a result, the poor South African media missed the gist of the Algeria captain’s answer.
Caf officials shrugged it off, saying there was nothing they could do.
But then the SA media took revenge . . . they followed suit and asked coach Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba a question in one of South Africa’s many official languages.
He replied in isiZulu – and there were loud rumbles from the North African journalists as they were served a taste of their own medicine!
Caf officials tried in vain to force Mashaba to resort to English – but the coach stuck to his guns!
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