In 2010, a series of events highlighted the intersection of globalization influences with internal needs when South Africa hosted the 2010 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. The mega-event afforded significant potential opportunities for displaying apparent racial harmony and enjoying global visibility, generating economic and other payoffs at home, and celebrating progress in post-apartheid transformation. This paper considers the World Cup mega-event issues in the context of societal and educational realities, and of the debate over the expectations for and legacy after the event. The case illustrates the dialectic of the global and the local in the manner that the World Cup played out at all levels from global to local, including in the ramifications for schools. Long-term qualitative research provides examples of micro-level realities in schools in relation to macro- and meso-level policies and events. A retrospective on the World Cup mega-event reveals few long-term benefits to South Africa, and much debate over the tangible and intangible benefits. The entwined nature of education and society is evident in the aftermath and the return to reality that prompted calls for South Africa to rethink susceptibility to globalization influences, and to focus instead on needs at home including preventing further losses of earlier educational transformation gains.