Monday 29 June 2009

South Africa Making a Point


The Confederations Cup, FIFA's little play thing, that sees the six most recent continental tournament winners - Europe: Spain, South America: Brazil, North America: USA, Asia: Iraq, Oceania: New Zealand and Africa: Egypt - join the World Champions Italy and the host's of the next World Cup South Africa, is meant to be used as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup the following year.

The tournament has never really had much resonance among the nations that compete in it but this was more than just a tournament for the host's South Africa, who had two points to prove; One, that they could host a major footballing event, and two, that they could compete and not embarrass themselves on a world stage, which was looking more and more likely as the weeks rolled towards the summer of 2010.

In the years in the lead up to the World Cup, which is being held in Africa for the first time, the national team's results have been mediocre at best.

In their World Cup Qualifying group, which they still had to compete in because the World Cup qualifying has a direct affect on the qualifying for the African Cup of Nations, they enjoyed just two wins, both against Equatorial Guinea.

South Africa opened the tournament with an unconvincing performance against Iraq, which brought about a dire 0-0 draw, leaving all the doubters still with the view that South Africa wouldn't do themselves justice when the best 31 nations in the world verge on the most southern point in Africa.

After their unbearable opening to this, somewhat, unimportant tournament, the only way, as the saying goes, was up, and a much improved performance in their second group game, albeit against New Zealand, resulted in a 2-0 win for the hosts, which was enough to send them through to the Semi Finals.

This is where South Africa showed their worth and began to prove to the South African public, and the rest of the world, that they were no mugs and maybe aren't destined to become the first host nation to be knocked out in the group stages of a World Cup Finals.

A world class free kick from Dani Alves, three minutes from time, in the Semi Final was all that separated them from Brazil, and, on paper, it wasn't going to get any easier for them in the 3rd place play-off, after the USA shocked the FIFA No'1 ranked team, Spain, in their semi final.

Spain and South Africa played out a scintillating 3-2(AET) match, which went back and forth throughout and took a wonder free kick from Mphela to take into extra time, moments after Spain had scored twice in two minutes to come from 1-0 down, with just a minute of normal time on the clock.

In just 210 minutes of football, South Africa had proved to the world that they could compete with the best, which is the minimum requirement from the South African public who were passionate, loud and fully supportive of their team throughout, but in the back of all their minds must have worried that their worst fears could well have been realised.

The South Africans managed to prove their point. They took the best two teams in the world to the brink, they didn't win, but they came close. That will be more than enough in 12 months time, and performances like the ones against Spain and Brazil will hold the South Africans in good stead against most of the smaller nations come World Cup Finals time.

They also managed to prove that they are capable of holding their own in the hosting department, and although there were only eight nations at this event, compared to the 31 other nations that will join South Africa next year, the signs look good.

It may take some getting used to the weather however, with winter temperatures in South Africa during our 'summer' months, but that will be the least of the nations worries as they compete for the biggest prize in football. South Africa, though, are just happy to be there, happy to host, and happy that they know, and the public now knows, that they wont just be there to make up the numbers.

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