Soccer in South Africa

Brad Morgan

Football - or soccer, as we call it - is the most widely played sport in South Africa, with its traditional support base in the black community. For many South Africans the country's proudest sporting moment came when we won the African Nations Cup on home turf in 1996.

Soccer is intensely followed, and the quality of the local game keeps improving - as demonstrated by the increasing number of South African players-in-exile among the glamorous European clubs.

Local teams, organised in a national league plus a plethora of knock-out cups, are followed with passion by paint-daubed, costumed, whistling and cheering fans. Mercifully, the country has been spared the spectre of football hooliganism.

There's probably no quicker way to "break the ice" with the South African man on the street than to demonstrate some knowledge of local soccer.