This Just In: South Africa “Highly Unlikely” Not to Win WC 2010!

Monday afternoon, during what was one of about a billion — give or take — World Cup-related events in South Africa to come over the next two-and-a-half years, South African Football Association vice president Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana dropped a (verbal) bomb on his audience: “I believe South Africa will win the World Cup in 2010. And in the highly unlikely event that South Africa do not win the World Cup, another African team will.”

The second part of his statement — the part about an African nation winning — is one that becomes more and more likely as the years pass, so no stones should be thrown at that assertion. The bit about South Africa winning, however, is something else entirely. Granted, they did win the African Cup of Nations in 1996, when it was played in South Africa, but in the 2004 and 2006 tournaments, Bafana Bafana failed to escape the group stage of the tournament, a fate they look fully prepared to repeat again this year. And things haven’t been much better on the World Cup front: In 1998 and 2002 they went out in the group stage, and didn’t even qualify to go to Germany in 2006.

Now, granted, (as the US knows) hosting is a great way of getting over that qualification hurdle but, well, winning games is going to be required once the tournament actually starts and, based on the available evidence, that’s going to be a bit of a challenge for the 78th-ranked South Africans. They have, however, got a very well-paid Brazilian coach, and will have a whole lot of noisy support — the off-pitch stuff is well in-hand, at least.

[via 101 Great Goals]

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Category: Africa, World Football

Tags: Africa, South Africa, World Cup 2010, World Football

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