Rephaboliki ya Afrika-Borw

Welcome to the fray, Mike Herrmann, a.k.a. Martin Fabricio. I was beginning to worry our esteemed fourth member didn’t know what a blog was.

Mike brings up an interesting point — part of me feels we should all have football names. Problem is, I’ve never been able to come up with a good one. Martin Fabricio is good, although I do believe it originally was intended as a Formula 1 name. But that’s OK. Mike’s and my former roommate Phil had a good one, which was based on an old-school dishwashing detergent and in the Brazilian single-name mold:

Rinso.

He got it off an old-school store sign that was in a local pub. Phil sent me this photo the other day, from somewhere in Newtown in Sydney:



Speaking of names, here is an interesting fact about our host country: It has 11 official names.

According to the country’s Constitution, each of the 11 official languages has an official name for the nation to match:

• Republiek van Suid-Afrika (Afrikaans)
• Republic of South Africa (English)
• IRiphabliki yeSewula Afrika (IsiNdebele)
• IRiphabliki yaseMzantsi Afrika (IsiXhosa)
• IRiphabliki yaseNingizimu Afrika (IsiZulu)
• Rephaboliki ya Afrika-Borwa (Sepedi)
• Rephaboliki ya Afrika Borwa (Sesotho)
• Rephaboliki ya Aforika Borwa (Setswana)
• IRiphabhulikhi yeNingizimu Afrika (SiSwati)
• Riphabuḽiki ya Afurika Tshipembe (Tshivenda)
• Riphabliki ra Afrika Dzonga (Xitsonga)

There you go.

Martin Fabricio (aka Herrmann) Speaks

As this is my first ever blog in my short, but storied life, I shall make it short and confounding. To this end, I have decided that I shall post to this blog entirely under my European football name of Martin Fabricio (pronounced mar-tan fah-bree-see-oh). I'm sorry, there is no fancy Facebook European football name generator for this...you're going to have to use your good ol' fashioned imagination to come up with one if you want to join in the fun. I shall also only use the term football for the US term 'soccer' - we shall call it my pre-World Cup training, lest I have to clarify that I'm not an idiot a million times a day when at the tourney.

First, let me give a big over-the-head substitution clap to my fellow bloggers and travelmates - Ed, Scott, and Drew. Their initial posts have excited the masses like an Australian on The Morning Show recounting how he saw his German friend's bronze medal at the Winter Olympics (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_at_the_Winter_Olympics - quite sad really). Well done.

Next, I would be remiss if I did not include a mention of this article I perused while reading about how the Rockets blew it in Game 7 against the Lakers - http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=647200&sec=us&root=us&&cc=3436. Now, let me tell you why this article does not excite me:

• There is not one paragraph that you can summarize by saying 'this guy is a potential bad mother f-*cker' (note: I am unfamiliar with our rating on this blog, so I shall hold off on the overt profanities - as if using '-*' really throws anyone off or makes it less offensive...I digress).
• I have never heard of any of these people.
• The descriptions of the people they may replace are essentially - 'this guy just might edge out the 46 year old that blew out his Achilles last year and is just back in shape'.
• I fear it may be too late to renew my subscription to Futbol Hoy, the MLS's official league magazine.
• ADDITIONAL NOTE: It can be seen with one look at each of the names that these people grew up in a house with a Neiman Marcus card, a Volvo, and an Italian Greyhound named Scout. How will we ever be good at football as a nation if we aren't generating prospects from every corner of our nation? (Thank you Drew for not only this point, but also the gigantic chicken parma that nearly threw me into a coma while looking at the big belly seahorse - http://www.daveharasti.com/articles/images/seahorse1.jpg - at the Melbourne zoo.)

Finally, to all the 'soccer' moms out there that thought bringing juice instead of sodas for drinks after little league football was a good idea...........it wasn't...next time, bring sodas. (I know I got a few of you with that one...you really expected me to come down hard, but sometimes, a simple reminder also does the trick. Now you know...and knowing is half the battle.)

Fabricio.