I am a second sting player for Brazil’s world cup team. If anyone gets hurt or becomes ill I will have a chance to play, not that I would wish that upon a teammate though. I personally am extremely excited about this opportunity to travel, and this will be my first time leaving the continent. I am not very familiar with past ethnic struggles in the hosting country South Africa, but after some research I will do my best to explain. A main struggle that the people of South Africa endured was the conflict over state boundaries laid down during colonization. Some agreed with the new boundaries, but others wanted to keep the tribal boundaries that were already in place. We will be arriving in South Africa very soon, and I am expecting to see many struggling people. According to a survey conducted by the United Nations South Africa was ranked second for most murders and first for assault and rape, I will definitely be watching my back. Another problem that South Africa faces is that there is too large of a difference between the lower and middle classes. The two barely interact; the middle class usually lives in gated communities to escape the poor lower class. There are some positive ethnic relations in the country as well mostly caused by the huge jump in technology South Africa has experienced in the last few years.

We, the Brazilian football team have been in South Africa for a while already. we have been practicing in Johannesburg ever since we flew in on May 27. the first thing we did when we got there was a physical conditioning thing and the next day we got right into practicing because we don't mess around. Head coach Dunga says this will not be like 2006 when we were eliminated in the quarter-finals so we're switching things up a little. According to him we are not going to be as open to the public this time around, that means no public practices and fewer interviews with us, the players. The hotel that we have been set up in is quite nice, its called the Fairway hotel, apparently its five star. I assume its called the Fairway hotel because its in the middle of a golf course. we don't practice there though, we have to go to a local school. Back home in Brazil we dont have to live together which is nice. We all make quite a bit of money and we also have our own field to practice on, some of us don't even live in Brazil, Ronaldinho, for example. He got picked up by Barcelona and splits his time between Brazil and Europe. we don't really care about the accommodations though, we just came here to play the game, and win.