UK journalist Owen Slot looks at SA's determination that the tournament will succeed Likewise, you will find here a collection of sports stadiums arguably more beautiful than those anywhere else in the world. And, for example, in Tsitsing, a village half an hour from Rustenburg, you will find the splendid Maria Letaoana, who is one of many who have put their house up for accommodation for fans wanting to experience "homestay" accommodation.
She is thrilled about the World Cup because of the economic impact from which, she has been informed, she will benefit. But Tsitsing is neither attractive nor on, or near, the beaten track, and the authorities have advised Maria that her home would be in the R550-a-night category. That is desperately hopeful. So far she has not had a single booking.
This is South Africa opening its arms to the world but most of its people do not know what to expect because the world has never visited like this before.
The expectation is inescapable, but the thrill is tempered by humility - "Can you believe that Lionel Messi is coming here?" - and also a self-conscious pride: What is the world going to think of us?
And no, this is not universal.
When the ticket counters opened last week, the population on their doorsteps was your true, multicoloured Rainbow Nation melting pot. The broad sweep of the modern republic had turned up to queue together. As if the hype were not intense already, they were informed that they were not just buying a ticket, they were buying a piece of history.
Yet, simultaneously, there are pockets of whites who remain determinedly switched off from what is traditionally the sport of the black majority. Some would like to see the World Cup fail. And Sunday's papers carried stories of how the murder of Eugene Terre Blanche has had a uniting and galvanising effect on extreme elements of the old, white right wing.
Police are reported to have made raids on homes of members of an extremist organisation, the Suidlanders, which has armed itself with the intention of sabotaging the World Cup. At a time when the politics of race are already making big headlines, the Suidlanders are merely the latest of this World Cup's many scare stories.
But, for a more accurate reading of the temperature of the nation, spend a day in Soweto.
You would start, of course, at Soccer City, the stadium where the World Cup begins and ends, and you could progress then to Elkah, next to the Soweto Cricket Oval, where those locals who cannot afford tickets will congregate.
Soccer City is breathtaking in its audacity, the ultimate declaration that South Africa wants to compete with the hosts of tournaments past. Danny Jordaan, the chief executive of South Africa 2010, has said he wants stadiums, hotels - the whole show - to leave Germany, Japan and South Korea in the shade; on that count, Soccer City certainly wins round one.
Elkah is a playing field where the Rockville Hungry Lions play, where a number of professionals, including Pitso Mosimane, the Bafana Bafana assistant coach, began their career. It is also where World Cup organisers have elected to stage one of their official fan sites.
When the tournament is in full flow, Elkah might be the most vibrant place in the country; for now, it is a disgrace, so unkempt that it is a health hazard, its clubhouse so vandalised it looks like a bomb site.
This is a classic World Cup juxtaposition: the R3.26-billion investment and the community wasteland in need of a few cents.
"We complain every day but no one cares," Mighty Motswene, the Lions coach, says. "They promised us they would fix up this ground but it's been like this for years."
So is he bitter about the World Cup?
"No, I am so thirsty for it," he says. "If the World Cup can help me, I can be so happy."
No one has promised him a cent. The World Cup brings him hope.
It brings hope, too, for Robby Letsholo down the road. Robby's Place is his B&B and, with the use of other local houses, he has 58 rooms that he intends to fill with World Cup fans.
"The coming of 2010 is going to make my presence in the global market even stronger," he says. "People coming here will get a different opinion of Soweto." And: "It's safer here than in the city."
At Style's Joint, a bar at which football fans congregate, the message is the same: "We want people to be safe here during the World Cup," says Siphiwe Mabala, an advertising student.
Before him lies his entire professional career and so he is acutely aware of the likely long-term benefits of South Africa making the right impression on its guests.
These are the economics of South Africa 2010. You could ask whether it is appropriate for a nation to spend billions on a sports event while there are townships with playing fields unfit for the game. But the answer is that this is an investment it hopes will repay itself over and over.
That is the message of hope that sustains Maria Letaoana, Robby Letsholo, the Rockville Hungry Lions and the entire host nation. It is an ambitious one and, though there are 101 reasons to question it, and even more critics voicing their doubts, there is a buoyancy and passion for this event that might be both its defining identity and its saving grace.
"Criticism is something that we are used to," Jordaan.
"Ever since we first bid for the World Cup, this is a road we have travelled. There have been doomsayers, but we have so far proved those people wrong and we will prove them wrong again.
"From the moment Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, this country was written off. But we have struggled hard. You cannot determine your lives by having people say, 'You cannot do this'. Because if we were to have taken that position, I would still be living under apartheid."
There is only mild hyperbole in this invoking of history.
The World Cup is a massive chapter in the development of the democratic South Africa, an event of infinitely greater significance to its hosts than to Germany in 2006 or to France in 1998. And it will continue to have its doomsayers, but you can only hope that in 49 days they are wrong. - © The Times, London
