Almost… all over. Nearly done and dusted. The name blocks and the little Fifa flags are being removed from the dais and the translation teams are starting to pack their bags. Journalists are writing their last stories, the hall is emptying.

This is South Africa the morning after the month before. After six years of preparation and four weeks of a football-themed international mega-show, the circus is moving on.

The life of a World Cup journalist is an odd existence as well as a privilege. One is beamed up, Star Trek-like, out of the real world for five or six weeks to a life on Planet World Cup where one wanders, gypsy-like, from place to place until the journey and images run together.

First the travel, then the match followed by the managers’ press conference and catching players walking or running the gauntlet of the media maelstrom between the safety of dressing room and team bus.

After that the “story” has to be instantly ripped up or rewritten or refined and, sometime around midnight or just after, one may walk back out into the African night and head for whatever counts as home away from home.

After the second-round matches, the atmosphere on the exit route changed. Instead of “see you next time”, it was “goodbye and thank you” to the stadium staff and the volunteers who were already, under cover of darkness, taking down the awnings, the screens, the sign-posting, the direction boards, the food stands and security fencing.

The last set-piece conference featured Fifa president Sepp Blatter, secretary-general Jerome Valcke, local organising chairman Irvin Khoza, chief executive Danny Jordaan and African confederation president Issa Hayatou.

Frankly, they had nothing new to say. Blatter ran through compliments to all the organising chiefs within both Fifa and South Africa and wound up with a tribute to Nelson Mandela “who I met first in 1992, one year after he had come out of jail, and who had the dream to bring the World Cup here to South Africa and to the African continent”.

Valcke, Fifa’s hard-working organising “enforcer”, praised the South African police for delivering tournament security to gainsay all the fearful predictions of the foreign media. Now Valcke goes back to square one, imposing Fifa’s will on the Brazilians who must host the game in 2014.

Blatter did his diplomatic best to skirt around questions about refereeing and Holland’s horror show in Sunday’s World Cup final when anyone who loves football would have been both delighted and vastly relieved that Spain managed to win, even if it took a late, late goal — from Andres Iniesta — to achieve it.

Later, English referee Howard Webb came in for bitter criticism from Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk and his players. In the opinion of most of the international media — that this writer could canvass — Webb’s only mistake, if it can be deemed that, was in not sending off one, two or three of the Dutch cloggers early in the game.

As the man in charge of football’s ultimate match, he wanted to try to keep everyone on the pitch — until Johnny Heitinga forced his card-hand in extra time — and who can blame him for that?

In total, Webb distributed 14 cards, which was the highest haul in the World Cup finals since the 20-card record from the second round in 2006 between Portugal and these same — or at least similarly rebellious — Dutchmen.

The farthest Blatter would go initially was to say: “It was a very hard task that the refereeing trip had. It was not easy — really, not easy and they were not helped.…” He left his sentence hanging in mid-air but all his listeners read an unspoken “by the attitude of the Dutch players”.

Later, he added, tellingly: “Football is a sort of school for life which is based on discipline and respect. It is also a combat game but a combat game in the spirit of fair play. We tell our young players that to learn to win is easy but in football you also learn how to lose and when that happens you should not forget discipline and respect.”

Repetition was the order of the day in questions and answers about the reopening of inquiries into goal-line technology, about the value — using Spain’s Barcelona as evidence — of relying on home-bred talent and about no decision this year on the continental allocations of the 31 slots for the 2014 finals.

These are circular issues. The football circus has rehearsed them before and will rehearse them again. Another time, another place, another day.

As for here and now, it is, finally, all over. Conclusively done and dusted. The name blocks and the little Fifa flags have vanished from the dais and the translation teams have packed all their bags. Journalists have finished writing and are filing their last stories. The hall is silent.

The World Cup has left the building.