South African Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu said he was in dreamland on Thursday as his beloved Rainbow Nation prepared to host the football World Cup.

In a barnstorming performance at an eve-of-tournament concert in Soweto township, the 78-year-old archbishop said he could never have imagined that the one-time international pariah would one day stage the world's most popular sporting event.

"I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. It's so beautiful - wake me up!" said Tutu, dressed in a yellow South African football shirt and matching bobble hat.

The former archbishop of Cape Town, awarded the Nobel prize in 1994 for his leading role in the campaign against the whites-only apartheid regime, thanked the world for helping South Africa to transform.

"We want to say to the world: 'Thank you for helping this ugly, ugly worm, or caterpillar which we were, to become a beautiful, beautiful butterfly," said Tutu who was the first to coin the phrase Rainbow Nation.

"Africa is the cradle of humanity so we welcome you all, every single one of you. We are all Africans," he added.

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