Anger filtered through and threatened to overtake South African disappointment yesterday as details of Germany's victory in the race for the right to hold the World Cup in 2006 seeped into the nation's psyche.
The press had a field day as newspapers vied with one another in castigating New Zealand delegate Charles Dempsey for abstaining in the final round of voting - in which South Africa and Germany were the only contenders - instead of voting for South Africa as mandated by the Oceania Football Confederation.
Motorists driving into the work found Dempsey, a septuagenarian, staring at them from posters put up by the Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld. They identified him as South Africa's public enemy number one. The front page headline in the same newspaper read: "Damn it, Dempsey".
In a satirical reference to New Zealand's reputation as a sheep-rearing country, The Star, which is owned by Irish press mogul Tony O'Reilly, imposed Dempsey's head on a sheep on its front page. The headline read: "The man who stole our Cup".
The liberal Mail & Guardian - a crusading newspaper which campaigned vigorously against apartheid - carried a graphic of a tank crushing a black man on its front page. Superimposed on the tank's turret was a Nazi-style helmet. The headline read: "First World uber alles".
In a front page editorial The Sowetan - a black-owned and black-edited daily newspaper - was only marginally less strident: "The decision to give the 2006 Cup to Germany flies in the face of FIFA's own values of solidarity and universality . . . By turning its back on South Africa and Africa, FIFA has betrayed its own motto, `For the Good of the Game'."
The line taken by Mail & Guardian and The Sowetan echoed a point made - with more finesse and tact - by President Thabo Mbeki. He described the failure of South Africa's bid as "tragic for Africa".
Even as he spoke, blacks who had gathered to celebrate South Africa's anticipated but unrealised victory at Johannesburg's Civic Theatre chanted: "Away with Europe".
The hope had been that hosting the soccer World Cup would unite South Africans across the barriers of race and ethnicity as hosting - and winning - the Rugby World Cup had done in 1995. As black South Africans had cheered for the all-white rugby team in 1995, the expectation was that whites would root for the predominantly black soccer team in 2006.
But there was some solace for those who see sport as a nation-builder: anger and disappointment drew South Africans of all races together as they lamented the "treachery" of Dempsey, the "myopia" of Europe and the "greed" of Germany.
