Bafana Bafana can hold their heads high.
They won the battle but lost the war. Beating France,2-1. Their first half display and Mexico trailing Uruguay, raised the spectre of an improbable passage into the group of 16. Bongani Khumalo and Katlego Mphela scored goals as a reeling France, down to ten man after Oscar Ruiz, the Colombian referee sent off Yoann Gourcuff for a questionable elbow to Macbeth Sibaya.
The Boys were looking very good and Siphiwe Tshabalala came very close to putting them further ahead. As it stood SA needed to score two goals more and Mexico needed to concede one more. Supporters were going wild, the vuvzelas were blaring overtime, and Bloemfontein was rocking.
Florent Malouda came on in the second half and Domenech introduced Thierry Henry minutes later and the French began to look more organized on attack. Franck Ribery’s industry finally paid off as a square pass found Malouda and the score was 1-2.
The stadium fell silent. The match was slipping away. Meanwhile in Rustenberg, the Mexicans looking quite unenterprising were letting Uruguay dictate terms but fortunately for them, no more goals were conceded.
France crash out and there are reports that Raymond Domenech refused to shake hands with Carlos Alberto Parreira after the match. If true, it provides an exclamation mark to the extraordinarily ill tempered French team. But Domenech is no generation of caillera, so chalk this down to the prevailing French attitude set forth by this coach. Laurent Blanc has to rebuild the image of Les Bleus along with the team. The damage will linger on for months, maybe even years.
Uruguay and Mexico advance and there is a very good chance that El Tri will meet Argentina in a repeat from the 2006 World Cup. Group A’s two best teams thoroughly deserved passage. They join Brazil and Netherlands, already entrants into the Group of 16.
Bafana Bafana, well played. We got to see some scintillating performances from the Boys and Siphiwe Tshabalala’s rocket in the Mexico opener, the first goal of the 2010 World Cup, will be remembered for a long, long time.