Azzurri style belies a frightening reality

All roads lead to Rome, eventually. What should have been a straightforward journey from Johannesburg to Pretoria - to attend the Italian team training - was anything but.

We got there in the end, but by the long and twisted route. My van driver, Sam, stopped to ask everyone from a homeless man from Zimbabwe, to park rubbish collectors, and policemen how to find the ground.

Then we stepped into another world, the lap of the Azzurri's luxury. The Italian training ground is at a very, very, very posh school. The fields were beautifully lush, unlike the patchy surroundings.

An enormous metal fence, in perfect Italian blue, surrounded the training area. Apart from that, it was pretty much like any other training session. Boring.

TV crews and journalists waited in a holding pen and, since this was a meeting of two football super-powers, we interviewed each other now and then. Pity about the language gap, although their English is a lot better than our Italian.

"Italy is not so happy with the team," freelancer Eleonora Trotta tells me. "New Zealand's draw with Slovakia was a surprise but Slovakia were not so good.

"At the beginning we thought New Zealand would be the easiest team to play. Italy will win by two or three but not five, six, seven."

Well that's reassuring.

Then it was off to their media base, just up the road. Yes, a whole media base, in a very, very, very posh private school called Cornwall Hill College. That Italian luxury - they are doing the World Cup in style.

This is the stark contrast this tournament involves. The people we met along the way to Pretoria were on the breadline, or below.

The Italians are based in a world apart. There's a flash golf course and lovely modern estate housing and a sort of English country-lane feel to their temporary home suburb.

Out on the streets, or lanes, poor blacks try to sell World Cup flags. Or just wander about. Or do menial jobs.

The Casa Azzurri is the flashest sports media set-up I have ever seen. It is passionate Italian football in tranquil, money-soaked surroundings. There's an auditorium for press conferences, with an English translator supplied.

An enormous glossy publication, scattered everywhere, gives team profiles. I had heard there would be young women dressed in Italian gear, greeting at every door, but didn't spot any. There are interview rooms, workrooms, you-name-it rooms.

Very nice, and all aimed at promoting Italy. Those Italians actually make the media feel at home, even though their journalists sound as if they are arguing with the coaches and stars, and aren't always so complimentary about Marcello Lippi and his team.

But you can't stop thinking about what was happening in the highways and byways outside, not far from a giant satellite dish the Italians have plonked in front of their media centre.

I asked Sam if he thought it would be okay for me to walk around here.

No.

"You don't know what these people are capable of," he said.

Sam, who is black, wasn't talking about the people who frequent the golf club. There is tragic poverty and mind-boggling inequality everywhere. It is a white and black divide.

Walk into our own hotel's cafe and you will see a room packed with cooks and waiters, all black. There is one white guy - the boss, a highly bossy boss - who talks down to his workers as if they were small children.

We have witnessed these sorts of scenes elsewhere.

The Italian media base is a style leader, as only the Italians can do it.

We are here to see football. The World Cup. The beautiful game. But everywhere, you can't help but see other things that are anything but a beautiful game.