Bafana Bafana end 23-year World Cup hoodoo

THE South African men’s national football team Bafana Bafana enjoyed a rare favour from arch-rivals Nigeria last night as they ended a 23-year World Cup qualification hoodoo.

Bafana pulled on the style beating Rwanda 3-0 at Mbombela Stadium as Nigeria did the same to Benin in Lagos during the last round of Group C of the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers last night.

They had no business to, but South Africa took a long route to booking their ticket to the global showpiece which will be hosted by Mexico, USA and Canada.

After leading Group C of the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers for over a year, Bafana were pencilled in the list of nine representatives for Africa.

And why not, after all, for the first time in over 20 years Bafana actually had a good run in World Cup qualifiers, after last qualifying out of their efforts in 2002 and only playing as hosts in 2010.

But no, the custodians of the game in the country, the South African Football Association (Safa), were not going to make it that easy.

And so the ‘rash’ eventually rubbed off onto coach Hugo Broos and his boys as they endured a frustrating 0-0 draw with neighbours Zimbabwe at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban last Friday.

That disappointing draw dimmed Bafana’s World Cup hopes as it came after they were docked three points by the Federation of International Football Association (Fifa).

The reason behind Fifa’s sanction has been well documented over the past few weeks - Bafana team manager Vincent Tseka and his team failed to pick up that midfielder Teboho Mokoena had already been yellow-carded twice ahead of the qualifier match against Lesotho in March. Therefore he was not eligible to play. However he did play and FIFA later found South Africa at fault, overturning the result to a 3-0 defeat

That sanction dropped Bafana to 14 points- equal to then group leaders Benin, the South Africans would then go on to complicate matters for themselves with the Zimbabwe draw.

And so headed to the last game it was all to play for, calculators were out and to make matters worse, Broos had lost both his primary strikers -Mamelodi Sundowns’ Iqraam Rayners before the Zimbabwe match and Burnley’s Lyle Forster ahead of the Rwanda encounter.

But it remained not all lost; there was always belief that Nigeria would beat Benin and Bafana win against Rwanda.

Thanks to Nigeria beating Benin in Lagos last night and the Orlando Pirates-connection of Thalente Mbatha, Oswin Appollis that South Africa has qualified for the World Cup on the last day of qualifiers.

“Siyaya e-America! Bafana Bafana!” shouted the South African Minister of Sports, Arts & Culture Gayton McKenzie in front of television cameras after the match. 

THE MERCURY