VOA标准英语2009年-Egyptian Hosts Offer Advice for South Afri

By Brent Latham
Cairo
12 October 2009

The FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Egypt has reached its final week, with a champion to be crowned on Friday in Cairo. With the football competition drawing near a close, Egyptians are offering advice for South Africans on organizing a big event, as the continent prepares for the full-fledged version of the World Cup next year.

 
Brazilian player Douglas Costa (L) fights for the ball with German Sebastian Jung during their FIFA Under-20 World Cup quarter-final soccer match in Cairo, 10 Oct 2009
With their first experience as a host country for a FIFA event nearly behind them, Egyptians are looking ahead to the World Cup in South Africa next year, and are anxious to share their experiences with their fellow Africans.

Thousands of Egyptians helped out with the organization of this three-week event as volunteers and members of the local organizing committee.

Stephanie Schenouda is the assistant director for media and communication for the Egyptian local organizing committee.

"The advice I would give is to be organized from the beginning of the competition, and do everything perfectly¹, prepare the schedule of the match, prepare the volunteers earlier, everything concerning the tournament," Schenouda said.

The Under-20 World Cup draws only a fraction of the fans that the full World Cup will bring to South Africa, when hordes² of supporters from 32 nations will descend³ on the southern end of the continent.

Considering the scale of the challenge faced by South Africa, the organization next year will need to be even better than what the Egyptians have offered thus far, says Sydney Malangu, a photographer from Johannesburg working at the Under-20 World Cup.

"What I have seen here, South Africa can give much better, because it is a larger scale and everyone will be looking at South Africa. It has been a good experience, tough though, a lot of challenges, but I am still getting through. The first games, preparations were a little bit not on point, but as the tournament progressed, everything was coming together," Malangu said.

Egyptian journalist George Riad says South Africa's good showing as host at the Confederations Cup earlier this year and ample infrastructure⁴ in South Africa make the country a good bet to hold an excellent tournament.

"As we know South Africa is the best African country if we talk about facilities and about infrastructure, about the stadiums, so the main thing is that all the fans are worried about is security. It will be not like in Germany or Japan and Korea, but what we saw in the Continental⁵ Cup can make us confident of good organization," Riad said.

Schenouda says Egyptians wish the South Africans well, and share a sense of pride over the tournament with other Africans.

"The African people are capable doing really good things and organizing great events, they have good capabilities," she said.

The FIFA Under-20 World Cup ends Friday, at which point the world's sporting attention shifts to the U-17 World Cup, beginning later this month in Nigeria. That tournament is the final warm-up in a series designed by FIFA to highlight the hosting capacities of the African continent leading up to the World Cup, which kicks off next June in Johannesburg.

1 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

2 hordes   

n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落

参考例句：

• There are always hordes of tourists here in the summer. 夏天这里总有成群结队的游客。
• Hordes of journalists jostled for position outside the conference hall. 大群记者在会堂外争抢位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

4 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

5 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。