Fifa World Cup 2026

Foxhound5366 said:
Oh well, at least it's done. That whole "pass to Williams and let him hold onto it" tactic needs to die.

Some absolutely brilliant defensive work, but just like in any sport if you keep defending sooner or later the other team will get through.

Canada showed more attacking spirit, and it was rewarded at the best possible time for them.

I won't say this team was an embarrassment like one which faced Mexico at the start, but we need some more star players to deliver magic.

Here's to the next World Cup I guess, let's see where we are then.
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Williams said this is a young team - so perhaps this is just a good opportunity for next time.
 
TheChamp said:
The strategy of the big money to attract stars has never worked to improve your football, China tried it, it never worked the same way it's not working for the Saudis.

They need to find a way to reverse engineer the strategy, instead of being obsessed about importing big stars, be obsessed about exporting unknowns to other nations and make stars out of them, even if it means paying teams to have their players, something similar to what Ajax Cape Town had with Ajax Amsterdam.

But there is a lot of things that are in the way, religion being the biggest stumbling block.
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Tevez and his $40 million and 4 goals. He brought 19 family members with him and openly referred to his stint in China as a holiday.

The minute China enforced a salary cap, the foreign stars left and haven't been back.
 
Unpopular opinion.

Everyone makes a huge deal about this is the first time South Africa reached the 2nd round and what an achievement it is. But mathematical we didn't do better yet journalist all write what a great achievement it is.

But in this new format of an adding an additional 16 teams (5 more from African) to make it a 48 team World Cup and not 32 team format World Cup like before, losing in the last 32 is the same as the old format of finishing 3rd or 4th in your group since we never had a last 32 before only a last 16.

So we really just did the same as previous World Cups where we finished 3rd in our group. 2026 team was no better than those teams and I would argue our 2010 team was better than this team and played more attractive football.
 
skimread said:
Unpopular opinion.

Everyone makes a huge deal about this is the first time South Africa reached the 2nd round and what an achievement it is. But mathematical we didn't do better yet journalist all write what a great achievement it is.

But in this new format of an adding an additional 16 teams (5 more from African) to make it a 48 team World Cup and not 32 team format World Cup like before, losing in the last 32 is the same as the old format of finishing 3rd or 4th in your group since we never had a last 32 before only a last 16.

So we really just did the same as previous World Cups where we finished 3rd in our group. 2026 team was no better than those teams and I would argue our 2010 team was better than this team and played more attractive football.
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But, General Minimus, they did do better. They got out of the group stages and the opponents weren't minnows, but opponents who regularly make it to the world cup not most of the filler who were helped by the expanded focus. The 2010 team was better yes and some of the older too but this team achieved more. Broos is overly conservative, and the bald striker, dont know his name, is terrible at ball control. If he were better there were chances for the taking when he got through a few times only to pull it back.
 
My thoughts on the SA team, they were unrecognisable from the Bafana of the past.

Passing , ball skills, defending, all on a competitive international level.

But we still can't score. At best our forwards will just try and blast the ball through a wall of defenders, the ball bounces back into the other team's possession and the opportunity is lost.

Lyle Foster, Iqraam Rayners, Evidence Makgopa were the best we had, and not a single goal from any of them.

One goal and a penalty in 4 games ....

Our team didn't embarrass, they played with what they had, it was good but was never going to be enough.

Maybe next time.
 
stefan9 said:
Good effort boys. Not to be.
Thought we were too defensive.
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I have some friends who are canadian citizens.

They were ribbing me that bafana were mostly passing ball within own half. I didn't watch so no idea if true.
 
skimread said:
Unpopular opinion.

Everyone makes a huge deal about this is the first time South Africa reached the 2nd round and what an achievement it is. But mathematical we didn't do better yet journalist all write what a great achievement it is.

But in this new format of an adding an additional 16 teams (5 more from African) to make it a 48 team World Cup and not 32 team format World Cup like before, losing in the last 32 is the same as the old format of finishing 3rd or 4th in your group since we never had a last 32 before only a last 16.

So we really just did the same as previous World Cups where we finished 3rd in our group. 2026 team was no better than those teams and I would argue our 2010 team was better than this team and played more attractive football.
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In the previous formats of the WC, this would have been considered a very balanced group.

Mexico and South Korea are perennial World Cup qualifiers and both are objectively much better teams than we are. The Czechs are on the meh side of European nations, but still competitive and they had a siginificant advantage in terms of physicality, which they could not exploit against us.

It is not like we got a weak group because of the expanded tournament. We would have been the nation considered to be the soft touch in the group. Finishing second in this group was no small achievement and we are in the knockouts on merit.

I do agree that our 2002 and 2010 teams were much better (1998 was our worst). Saying that, this team only conceded 4 goals, so while being very, very poor in attack and the Mexico performance aside which was some of the worst football terrorism we've seen, this team wasn't walked over.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
I have some friends who are canadian citizens.

They were ribbing me that bafana were mostly passing ball within own half. I didn't watch so no idea if true.
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I got bored after 30 minutes and went to bed. But it looked like the game plan was to play for a penalty shootout. So yeah, lots of playing in their own half.
 
daveza said:
My thoughts on the SA team, they were unrecognisable from the Bafana of the past.

Passing , ball skills, defending, all on a competitive international level.

But we still can't score. At best our forwards will just try and blast the ball through a wall of defenders, the ball bounces back into the other team's possession and the opportunity is lost.

Lyle Foster, Iqraam Rayners, Evidence Makgopa were the best we had, and not a single goal from any of them.

One goal and a penalty in 4 games ....

Our team didn't embarrass, they played with what they had, it was good but was never going to be enough.

Maybe next time.
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2002 was probably peak Bafana Bafana at an international tournament, even though we didn't progress from the Group.

5 goals scored, running Spain hard in a 3-2 thriller; our first win over a European nation at a WC (1-0 over Slovenia) and coming from 0-2 down to draw 2-2 with Paraguay with a 90th minute penalty kick.

The 2010 team was let down by the atrocious performance against Uruguay. The 1998 team remains our worst.

I do agree though that we have huge problems in attack and scoring goals and this can be seen in our domestic league. In the recent PSL season, 9 teams averaged less than a goal a game and if it wasn't for Pirates (58 goals) and Sundowns (57 goals), the league average would have been less than 2 goals per game. Only two South Africans scored double figures and Lyle Foster managed a whole 3 league goals.
 
Disclaimer: Not a soccer follower but I think there is big problem with soccer scene in SA.

It is estimated that well over 200 to 500 South African rugby players are currently plying their trade in foreign and international leagues
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If above is true, seffrican soccer scene is going nowhere till they compete with best. Playing among your "friends" locally is not gonna get them anywhere.

On a ground level in tennis I see this all the time. For sportyHQ matches, Johannesburg kids don't participate that often in Pretoria based tournaments (green and hard ball). Without any doubt, Pretoria is where action is so when it comes to Tennis and I say it as a Jozi guy. So what happens is that Jozi kids get a shock once they start participating in proper TSA tournaments.

You have to play out of your comfort zone to be champions. It is not surprising that most of Seffrican swimming champions trained in USA and played there.
 
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