Lucas Radebe has grown up playing football with tennis ball or even with a ball made from old clothes and bags in South Africa. In Diepkloof Township, Lucas and his friends were lacking jerseys, but they thought an idea and collected bags of mealie meal to incise out holes for heads and arms. They also printed numbers on them and colored them using dye.

During those childhood days, the brutal government had a policy of ethnic and racial separation and Radebe had never thought that he would be playing professionally for the team of England. He had also not expected that he would become the captain of South African team during 2002 and 1998 world cup. He did not expect that world cup will come to his nation and will start by June 11.

It was just a few days, when they had named South Africa. Radebe has now reached the age of 41 and is retired. All this conversation took place in Johannesburg during a telephonic interview. In South Africa, there are two very popular sports, one is distance running and the other is soccer.

Apartheid imposed very harsh and improvisational actuality for athletes. It was June 17, 1992, when Boipatong Township located in the south of Johannesburg faced a very bad example of racial politics. There were more than forty people killed with guns, knives and axes. During this period, a rumor was spread saying that in the township they would kill every young man and so Mokoena’s mom decided that she would dress him like a girl. This was all done to protect Mokoena.

It was his first trip to South Africa, when it was decided that the country would appear in the Barcelona Olympics. After three decades, South Africa was participating for the first time in games. Radebe has also mentioned that their country’s youth development system is very poor and even their schools are not generating required players.

Country is growing economically and this means that fields for soccer are becoming extinct and new condominiums and apartments are coming up at the place. National Soccer Federation is absolutely unsystematic and Carlos Alberto Parreira coach of South African team has criticized about having very less warm-up matches. The entire team has very less experience of playing internationally, except for Benni McCarthy, Steven Pienaar and Mokoena who had actually played in England, but still Nation looks forward enthusiastically.