The trophy was first reunited with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg. Since then the trophy has been on a tour of the country and will be taken to 33 towns before ending in Soweto for the first game in June.According to the BBC, people, many wearing South African national football shirts, have been queuing down the street outside a leisure center in Cape Town's Khayelitsha to have their photo taken with the trophy.
Apparently, only heads of state and tournament winners are allowed to actually touch it, making it seem almost holy to me.
What I found most interesting was that the trophy was actually stolen 44 years ago from an exhibition in London, but was found a week later in a bush by a dog named, Pickles.
I found that pretty amusing that such a random thing happened to this same trophy that is now being paraded about like the olympic flame. It's almost comparable in terms of how much attention it's getting in South Africa. The respect South African's have for the trophy must be immense seeing as it was a huge turning point in their history winning the cup in 1995 just a year into Nelson Mandela's presidency. The event is also known as beginning the spark of reconciliation between the white Afrikaners, which the team captain was, and the blacks of South Africa.
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