The World Cup is a confusing time for most Greek-Australians.

Especially this time around, given both Greece and Australia have secured a place in the finals.

Who do you support? Hellas or the Socceroos?

It’s a harrowing decision. Either way you feel like a turncoat, don’t you?

And what if they play each other in round 16?

This testing equation gets more complicated when your family has opted to spread itself even thinner than simply migrating from Greece to Australia.

Spare a thought for South African-Greek-Australians, whose families took a stop-over on the way and decided to stick it out for a while.

This small group find themselves torn between the patrida, the lucky country and the host nation. The divisions in the Loizou household, for example, run deep.

“Africa runs deep in the veins, I grew up there for the first thirteen years of my life, so I started off being a South African fan in every way,” says Aphrodite Loizou, whose family migrated to Australia from South Africa a decade ago.

“My mum’s become an Aussie and she’s going for Australia, my brother’s going for South Africa, and I’ll probably be going for Greece with my dad,” she says.

“I guess it’s the Greek pride thing. I think we need someone on their side, since they’re in such a shemozzle!”

Stavros Repanis disagrees. He’s backing South Africa all the way.

“I was born in South Africa, so my first team is Bafana Bafana, then the Socceroos, and then of course Greece. If any of those teams win I’ll be very happy,” he says.

But for him, South Africa’s first World Cup appearance on home soil is about more than just sport, it’s an important political step.

“Rugby was an apartheid game, but soccer is a South African game. So on the political side it’s nice to see. Hopefully now the country will be more united with the soccer,” he says.

He also warns fans of other nations to beware of South Africa’s secret weapon, the vuvuzela.

“The vuvuzela is a big long trumpet that makes a deafening noise, so when those foreigners go in there they’re not going to know what’s hit them!”