South Africa finds itself months away from hosting what can be considered to be the greatest sporting event on the calendar next year, the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Months ago, the country was laced with skeptics and rumours that FIFA has instantiated a back up plan to move the World Cup event to Germany were rife and only supported by the typical propaganda loving media. FIFA and the South African President later made announcements that these rumours were untrue and FIFA had further backed their pledge to host the games in South Africa.

Since then, we have all been stuck in traffic jams as we scramble to complete a 20 or 30 year transport overhaul plan in a space of 4 years, by introducing the Gautrain, new highways, road resurfacing and the nightmares caused at airports are no secret to most of us. Stadium development strikes, crime and property price increases are only a few of the issues that we have had to deal with.

The truth is, though, that in less than 250 days, our flag will fly high above our stadiums proud. Proud that we have risen from turmoil that we experiences here less than 20 years ago. Proud that we as a nation have taken an infrastructure designed purely for a sub-sector of our population and opened it up to the masses and managed to make it work. Proud that we as a nation sing a national anthem made up of five languages. Our flag can fly proud knowing that we, the people of South Africa are proud to stand under it.

The truest achievement that we will witness when Sepp Blatter makes the announcement that the World Cup is open is the achievement of knowing that we have risen. Well done South Africa!