The road back from two decades of woeful underachievement for Bafana Bafana has been long and arduous, with the historic first progression past a World Cup group stage in North America another major step along on the way.
The national team’s progression, punching above their weight to get past the 2026 Fifa World Cup’s Group A as its lowest-ranked team, with a memorable victory against a strong South Korea, and last 32 exit in their last-gasp 1-0 defeat against co-hosts Canada at Los Angeles Stadium on Sunday confirmed three things.
First, Bafana’s revival is real and continuing. Second, the talented youngsters who cut their teeth at their first World Cup have a bright future. Third, Bafana, despite some talent finally emerging after many dry years, are still behind the pace and physical and technical demands at the highest level.
Mostly, it has just been a pleasure watching Bafana Bafana at a World Cup again after a far too long 16-year absence since hosting the event in 2010, and first qualification in 24 years since Japan and South Korea in 2002.
Such lengthy absences take their toll on a national team’s comfort and performance at a World Cup and must be seen as a major factor in the nerviness of a poor performance in South Africa’s 2-0 opening-match defeat to Mexico.
It was evidenced too, in how Bafana bravely responded to the stage in their much-improved draw against Czechia and genuinely impressive 1-0 win against South Korea that clinched a place in the last 32.
The inexperience showed again as Canada, determined not to allow Bafana to express themselves as they had against the Koreans, ramped up the physical approach and intensity in that game in LA, and how Bafana battled to find an answer to that intensity.
Ultimately, all the teams the South Africans played against had better line-ups on paper and were more experienced at the level, meaning Bafana had to punch above their weight to be competitive.
And while having an increasingly strong league to draw national players from in the Betway Premiership is a bonus, more South African players need to take the step to Europe and find their way to bigger clubs so they can compete in top leagues and in the Uefa Champions League. That conditioning to a high level was the strength of Bafana’s opponents at the World Cup.
The only way our national team can go to the next World Cup in 2030 with less pressure of being an underdog battling to surpass themselves is if this generation that showed potential in North America are kept together, nurtured, perform well in the Africa Cup of Nations, grow in confidence and have even more talent added in the next four years.
That talent is emerging again to some extent — South Africa’s junior national teams have been performing well. Still South Africa lags behind most serious football nations in terms of a genuine, centralised development strategy, and the South African Football Association and Premier Soccer League seem no closer to recognising that deficiency or their respective roles in its origin.
And while having an increasingly strong league to draw national players from in the Betway Premiership is a bonus, more South African players need to take the step to Europe and find their way to bigger clubs so they can compete in top leagues and in the Uefa Champions League. That conditioning to a high level was the strength of Bafana’s opponents at the World Cup.
But Mbekezeli Mbokazi, Ime Okon, Relebohile Mofokeng, Oswin Appollis and Thapelo Maseko have shown their potential and that they are the future of the country’s biggest sport and for now, South Africa can rejoice in that. There is still much work to do ensuring they become forged into a genuinely competitive national team on the world stage.
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