South Africa national football team

The South Africa national football team or Bafana Bafana is the national team of South Africa and is controlled by the South African Football Association. They returned to the world stage in 1992, after years of being banned from FIFA. They will be hosting the 19th FIFA World Cup in June 2010 after they hosted the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2009. South Africa will be the first African nation to host the FIFA World Cup.

History

Football first arrived in South Africa through colonialism in the late nineteenth century, as the game was popular among British soldiers.^[2] From the earliest days of the sport in South Africa until the end of apartheid, organised football was affected by the country's system of racial segregation. The all-white Football Association of South Africa (FASA), was formed in 1892, while the South African Indian Football Association (SAIFA), the South African Bantu Football Association (SABFA) and the South African Coloured Football Association (SACFA) were founded in 1903, 1933 and 1936 respectively.
South Africa was one of four African nations to attend FIFA's 1953 congress, at which the four demanded, and won, representation on the FIFA executive committee.^[3] Thus the four nations (South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan) founded the Confederation of African Football in 1956,^[3] and the South African representative, Fred Fell, sat at the first meeting as a founding member. It soon became clear however that South Africa's constitution prohibited racially mixed teams from competitive sport and so they could only send either an all-black side or an all-white side to the planned 1957 African Cup of Nations. This was unacceptable to the other members of the Confederation and South Africa were disqualified from the competition, however some sources say that they withdrew voluntarily.
At the second CAF conference in 1958 South Africa were formally expelled from CAF. The all-white (FASA) were admitted to FIFA in the same year, but in August 1960 it was given an ultimatum of one year to fall in line with the non-discriminatory regulations of FIFA. On 26 September 1961 at the annual FIFA conference, the South African association was formally suspended from FIFA. Sir Stanley Rous, president of The Football Association of England and a champion of South Africa's FIFA membership, was elected FIFA President a few days later. Rous was adamant that sport, and FIFA in particular, should not embroil itself in political matters and against fierce opposition he continued to resist attempts to expel South Africa from FIFA. The suspension was lifted in January 1963 after a visit to South Africa by Rous in order to investigate the state of football in the country.
Rous declared that if the suspension were not lifted, football there would be discontinued, possibly to the point of no recovery. The next annual conference of FIFA in October 1964 took place in Tokyo and was attended by a larger contingent of representatives from African and Asian associations and here the suspension of South Africa's membership was re-imposed. In 1976, after the Soweto uprising, they were formally expelled from FIFA.
In 1991, with the apartheid system was beginning to be demolished, a new multi-racial South African Football Association was formed, and admitted to FIFA. On 7 July 1992, the South African national team played their first game in two decades, beating Cameroon 1-0. South Africa made the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, but failed to qualify past the group stage both times. They hosted (and won) the 1996 African Nations Cup and will host the 2010 World Cup, the first African nation to do so.
South Africa failed to impress local supporters by not scoring a single goal in the African Nations Cup of 2006. In light of these poor performances it was decided that the hiring of a more experienced manager was essential. Rumours began to fly, prior to the 2006, that England coach Sven-Göran Eriksson was to be the man for the job, with SAFA apparently offering him R30 million to take Bafana-Bafana to glory in 2010. However this has since been denied. More recently the former Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has accepted the job. He signed a R100 million contract covering four years. His term as manager started 1 January 2007 targeting 2010 FIFA World Cup but he resigned in April 2008 due to family reasons.
Joel Santana signed to coach until 2010.^[4]
South Africa hosted the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, a year before their World Cup, and finished in fourth place, coming through the group stages with a win over New Zealand and a draw with Iraq, despite a loss to Spain. They then lost in the semi-finals to Brazil, conceding a late free-kick after holding the South Americans at bay for most of the match. In the 3rd-place play-off, they lost to Spain after extra time, despite leading 1-0 at one stage. For many commentators^[who?], the ability of Bafana Bafana to stand up to the South American and European champions showed just how far the team had come.

Honours

• African Cup of Nations: 1
  

1996

• COSAFA Cup: 3
  

2002, 2007, 2008

International record

FIFA World Cup Profile

Although South Africa has made two appearances in the FIFA World Cup, they have not made it past the first round. Their first appearance was in France 1998, six years after they had been readmitted to the global football family. Despite a 3-0 drubbing to France in their opening game, they went on to draw against Denmark and Saudi Arabia. Korea/Japan 2002 was expected to be an opportunity for Bafana Bafana to step up to the next level but unfortunately, they failed to succeed, crashing out after the group stage despite beating Slovenia 1-0 for their first-ever FIFA World Cup win.

FIFA World Cup

Year	Result	Pos	P	W	D	L	GS	GA
1930	Did Not Enter
1934
1938
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966	Banned from FIFA
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1990
1994	Did Not Qualify
1998	Round 1	24	3	0	2	1	3	6
2002	Round 1	17	3	1	1	1	5	5
2006	Did Not Qualify
2010	Qualified (as hosts)	-	0	0	0	0	0	0
2014	To be determined
Total	3/19		6	1	3	2	8	11

FIFA Confederations Cup

Year	Result	P	W	D	L	GS	GA
1992	Banned from FIFA
1995	Did Not Qualify
1997	Round 1	3	0	1	2	5	7
1999	Did Not Qualify
2001
2003
2005
2009	4th place	5	1	1	3	4	5
2013	To be determined
Total	2/8	7	1	2	4	7	9

African Cup of Nations

Year	Result	P	W	D	L	GS	GA
1957	Disqualified because of apartheid
1959	Banned from CAF
1962
1963
1965
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994	Did Not Qualify
1996	Champions	6	5	0	1	11	2
1998	Runners up	6	3	2	1	9	6
2000	Third place	6	3	2	1	8	6
2002	Quarter-finals	4	1	2	1	3	3
2004	Round 1	3	1	1	1	3	5
2006	Round 1	3	0	0	3	0	5
2008	Round 1	3	0	2	1	3	5
2010	Did Not Qualify
2012	To be determined
2013	To be determined
Total	7/27	31	13	9	9	37	32

Former coaches

• Stanley Tshabalala 1992
• Ephraim Mashaba 1992
• Augusto Palacios 1992–94
• Clive Barker 1994–97
• Jomo Sono 1998
• Philippe Troussier 1998
• Trott Moloto 1998–00
• Carlos Queiroz 2000–02
• Jomo Sono 2002
• Ephraim Mashaba 2002–03
• April Phumo 2004
• Stuart Baxter 2004–05
• Ted Dumitru 2005–06
• Pitso Mosimane 2006
• Carlos Alberto Parreira 2007–08
• Joel Santana 2008–2009
• Carlos Alberto Parreira 2009–

Most capped players

Aaron Mokoena is the first South African player to reach 100 caps on 31st May 2010, against Guatemala, to celebrate he wore the kit number 100.

Player	South Africa career	Caps (Goals)
Aaron Mokoena	1999–present	100 (2)
Benni McCarthy	1997–present	83 (35)
Mark Fish	1993–2006	78 (16)
Shaun Bartlett	1995–2005	77 (28)
Siyabonga Nomvethe	1993–present	77 (16)
John Moshoeu	1998–present	73 (8)
Delron Buckley	1999–present	73 (10)
Lucas Radebe	1992–2003	70 (2)
Andre Arendse	1995–2004	67 (0)
Sibusiso Zuma	1998–2008	67 (13)

Top goal scorers

Player	South Africa career	Goals (Caps)
Benni McCarthy	1997–present	35 (83)
Shaun Bartlett	1995–2005	28 (74)
Phil Masinga	1992–2001	18 (58)
Siyabonga Nomvethe	1999–present	16 (74)
Katlego Mphela	2005–present	15 (29)
Sibusiso Zuma	1998–2008	13 (67)
Teko Modise	2007–present	10 (51)
Delron Buckley	1998–present	10 (72)
Bernard Parker	2007-present	9 (29)
Doctor Khumalo	1992–2001	9 (50)

Current squad

The 23 man final 2010 FIFA World Cup squad.

No. Pos. Player DoB (Age) Caps Goals Club 1 GK Shu-Aib Walters 26 December 1981 (1981-12-26) (age 28) 0 0 Maritzburg United 16 GK Itumeleng Khune 20 June 1987 (1987-06-20) (age 22) 21 0 Kaizer Chiefs 22 GK Moeneeb Josephs 19 May 1980 (1980-05-19) (age 30) 14 0 Orlando Pirates 4 DF Aaron Mokoena(c) 25 November 1980 (1980-11-25) (age 29) 100 2 Portsmouth 14 DF Matthew Booth 14 March 1977 (1977-03-14) (age 33) 26 1 Mamelodi Sundowns 3 DF Tsepo Masilela 5 May 1985 (1985-05-05) (age 25) 27 0 Maccabi Haifa 2 DF Siboniso Gaxa 6 April 1984 (1984-04-06) (age 26) 33 0 Mamelodi Sundowns 5 DF Lucas Thwala 19 October 1981 (1981-10-19) (age 28) 17 1 Orlando Pirates 19 DF Anele Ngcongca 20 October 1987 (1987-10-20) (age 22) 2 0 K.R.C. Genk 20 DF Bongani Khumalo 6 January 1987 (1987-01-06) (age 23) 6 0 Supersport United 21 DF Siyabonga Sangweni 29 September 1981 (1981-09-29) (age 28) 3 1 Golden Arrows 6 MF MacBeth Sibaya 25 November 1977 (1977-11-25) (age 32) 52 0 Rubin Kazan 10 MF Steven Pienaar 17 March 1982 (1982-03-17) (age 28) 46 2 Everton FC 11 MF Teko Modise 22 December 1982 (1982-12-22) (age 27) 51 10 Orlando Pirates 8 MF Siphiwe Tshabalala 25 September 1984 (1984-09-25) (age 25) 42 5 Kaizer Chiefs 13 MF Kagisho Dikgacoi 24 November 1984 (1984-11-24) (age 25) 30 2 Fulham 17 MF Surprise Moriri 20 March 1980 (1980-03-20) (age 30) 28 5 Mamelodi Sundowns 7 MF Lance Davids 11 April 1985 (1985-04-11) (age 25) 17 0 Ajax Cape Town 23 MF Thanduyise Khuboni 22 May 1986 (1986-05-22) (age 24) 5 0 Golden Arrows 12 MF Reneilwe Letsholonyane 9 June 1982 (1982-06-09) (age 27) 3 0 Kaizer Chiefs 18 FW Siyabonga Nomvethe 2 December 1977 (1977-12-02) (age 32) 74 16 Moroka Swallows 9 FW Katlego Mphela 29 November 1984 (1984-11-29) (age 25) 29 15 Mamelodi Sundowns 15 FW Bernard Parker 16 March 1986 (1986-03-16) (age 24) 29 9 FC Twente

Recent and future matches

The team is currently unbeaten in their last 11 matches. This streak stretches back to 2009.

Last five matches

Date	Team	Score	Type	Venue
31 May 2010	Guatemala	5-0 Win	Friendly	Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane, South Africa
27 May 2010	Colombia	2-1 Win	Friendly	Soccer City, Johannesburg, South Africa
24 May 2010	Bulgaria	1-1 Draw	Friendly	Orlando Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa
16 May 2010	Thailand	4-0 Win	Friendly	Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit, South Africa
28 April 2010	Jamaica	2-0 Win	Friendly	Bieberer Berg Stadion, Offenbach, Germany

Upcoming

Date	Team	Score	Type	Venue
5 June 2010	Denmark	—	Friendly	Atteridgeville Super Stadium, Atteridgeville, South Africa
11 June 2010	Mexico	—	Group Match	Soccer City, Johannesburg, South Africa
16 June 2010	Uruguay	—	Group Match	Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria, South Africa
22 June 2010	France	—	Group Match	Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein, South Africa

References

1. ^ The Elo ratings website lists 21 as the highest reached position, though after 23 (too few?) matches between 1947 and 1955, almost all with Australia and New Zealand, it had reached 9th place.
2. ^ Goldblatt, David (2007). The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football. London: Penguin. pp. 90–91. ISBN 978-0-14-101582-8.
3. ^ ^{a b} Goldblatt, The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, p493
4. ^ http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/soccer/wires/04/22/2080.ap.la.spt.soc.south.africa.santana.0414/index.html

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