Die Mannschaft made mincemeat of the Socceroos at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Sunday night and South Africa's journalists certainly reminded the Australian players, staff and fans of their dour performance with apt reviews in Monday's press.
Under the scathing headline "Humble Kangaroo Pie", The Times (which is read by some 42 million people daily) smashed Australia's efforts on their back page, describing Germany's domination as a "merciless slaughter of the Socceroos at the seaside".
Continuing what is a depressing reminder of the day to be known as the ‘Durban Demolition by the Deutsche', scribe Bareng-Batho Kortjaas said: "The Europeans were in no mood to taste the bunny chow local delicacy. Only one item on their Durban dinner menu seemed to whet the appetite of Joachim Loew's men: a succulent steak of kangaroo imported straight from Down Under."
And while the large part of Kortjaas's article was articulate and accurate, Australian fans to which I've chatted would be keen to debate his summation of Richard Garcia. Kortjaas likened Garcia to a "stallion on steroids", but I'd suggest he looked like a new born foal unfamiliar with the surrounds to which he'd been introduced.
The Citizen was kinder to Pim Verbeek's team with their match report focusing more on the strengths of the Germans than the utter incompetence of the Aussies.
Nevertheless, writer Sisa Majola was spot on when he wrote that "it's back to the drawing board for the Socceroos and their Dutch coach Pim Verbeek before their next crucial clash against Ghana next Saturday at Royal Bafokeng in Rustenburg."
While the after match reports were relatively accurate, you have to question Shoot 2010 newspaper who produced a lengthy three page feature in anticipation of the match. It's certainly nice that papers in South Africa are putting effort into covering teams of which they'd be relatively unfamiliar, but it's simply comical when a supposed picture of Scott Chipperfield is actually a portrait of John Aloisi from many moons ago.
Finally, I'd like to bring to light to a disappointing situation I encountered on my stroll to the stadium last night. Unfortunately, a small group of Australian "fans" decided to sing an extremely lengthy song about "German Bombers" while walking amongst and past literally hundreds of Deutsche devotees.
For mine, this was a grotesque and simply pathetic attempt to support the Socceroos by a handful of imbeciles I'd sooner see stranded on safari than standing arm in arm in the stands.
Have they no respect, nor understanding of the meaning of the World Cup?
