It's less than a year before the 2010 Soccer world Cup kicks off and the South African side Bafana Bafana, hosts of the world Cup are in full swing. Bafana Bafana automatically qualifies for the tournament and as the first African nation hosting this prestigious event, the team has a riding on them.
In the article below Monwabisi Jimlongo discusses the teams previous and up coming games, and the preparation they under going to make South African fans proud next year.
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It Only Gets Tougher for Bafana in 2010 Build-up
By: Monwabisi Jimlongo
Fresh from a 3-1 drubbing by 14th-ranked Serbia on Wednesday, Bafana Bafana will be involved in a series of friendly soccer matches between now and November 17.
But they will have to perform better than they did on Wednesday. The Serbians taught them a valuable lesson – that soccer is a game of 90 minutes, not one half, as was the case with coach Joel Santana’s men on the night.
Bafana applied themselves very well in the first half, threatening to score with Katlego Mphela, Steven Pienaar and Elrio van Heerden prominent in attack. But the national team crumbled in the second half, allowing the Serbians to punish them.
This was after Santana had made a number of substitutions which didn’t help Bafana’s cause.
“We started well, playing nice football and had good positioning against Serbia. But Bafana gave away too much space in the midfield,” said Santana.
“Serbia are a very good team and you have to look at the standings for the World Cup qualifiers to see that. It’s very good for Bafana to get more experience while preparing for next year and I hope that the next match against Germany will be better.”
With the World Cup in sight, Bafana have lined up seven international friendly matches as part of their preparations for next year’s tournament.
Next month is going to be the busiest for Bafana as they will play three matches “two away and one at home” in a space of 12 days.
Bafana face Germany away on September 5. Three days later the national team clash with Ireland in an away match and a week later Santana’s boys will round up their September schedule with a home clash against Angola in Kimberley. This is going to be the first time since its readmission by Fifa in 1992 that Bafana will play in the Northern Cape. Kimberley will therefore become the 14th city or town to host the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations champions.
Bafana are penciled in to feature in two away games in October. They face Norway on October 10 and Iceland three days later.
They wound up their 2009 programme with two home clashes against Japan in Durban on November 14 and Jamaica in Bloemfontein on November 17.
This is going to be the first time Bafana engage the Japanese and this should be yet another gruelling match for the South Africans as the Asians, who have already qualified for next year’s World Cup showpiece, are one of world soccer’s tough sides.
