Tournament News
Mexico date key for Bafana
2009-12-07 11:18
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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – Any likelihood of South Africa progressing from the group stage of the 2010 World Cup will hinge heavily on the outcome of the tournament’s opening match.
If rank underdogs Bafana Bafana play out of their skins against Mexico at Johannesburg’s Soccer City on June 11, either winning or at least earning a hard-fought draw, there is a chance that they can quickly turn Group A into a “group of death” which would obviously suit their quest to advance against widespread expectation.
The group has not earned that mantle up front -- primarily because South Africa appear, at this stage anyway, an obvious weak link.
It is a label more commonly given when a full quartet of teams look pretty hard to separate, and had Group A not sported 86th-ranked Bafana in its midst, then Mexico, France, Uruguay and any side with an altogether more credible current rating than the host nation might well have been slapped with that status.
So if South Africa are somehow able to impose themselves early on in Group A, they could well set the cat among the pigeons and give themselves a significantly heightened chance – with patriotic juices countrywide presumably flowing ever more quickly – of reaching the round of 16.
The flip side of the coin is that if Bafana lose to the 15th-ranked Mexicans, the odds on their proceeding will only lengthen a great deal: it may well leave them requiring nothing less than successive victories over Uruguay (Loftus, June 16) and France (Bloemfontein, June 22) to stave off early elimination. And that really is an Everest.
Yet a few good omens boost South Africa’s prospects, even if we are still many months out from the keenly-awaited kick-off.
For one thing, the opening match of the World Cup has a time-honoured reputation for producing fickle outcomes – not surprisingly, it tends to be a “butterflies” affair, regardless of which teams have set the tournament in motion.
It is a journey into the unknown, a fixture which sets a tone for the jamboree and is demanding for its participants – whatever their respective pedigrees -- because it signals the conclusion of weeks of hype and mounting expectation, and everyone frantically desires a cracker.
Needless to say, the match can fizzle (often playing into the hands of the unfancied team), looking as tame as two closely-matched boxers tentatively negotiating the first round of their high-stakes world title bout.
The 2006 opener in Germany was a rare exception as the hosts played out a six-goal affair with Costa Rica, winning 4-2 in the highest-scoring opening match in history.
It was probably helped by the tournament getting its first goal as early as the fifth minute, Philipp Lahm netting for the Germans, who would go on to be beaten semi-finalists.
But in other opening matches of the World Cup over the past two decades, fortunes have frequently not been quite so straightforward.
Here’s a little “use it or don’t use it” stat: this period has twice seen African sides grace the first match and they have downed a Goliath each time.
In 2002 Senegal, gracing their first ever tournament, sensationally pipped champions France 1-0 via Bouba Diop’s 30th-minute strike.
The team containing Messrs Barthez, Henry, Vieira, Petit and Desailly never recovered from the setback, finishing bottom of their group and failing to notch a single goal for the worst performance ever at the event of defending champions. (Gutsy Senegal went much further, to be beaten quarter-finalists.)
At Italia ’90, it was the turn of another emerging African factor, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, to humble mighty Argentina 1-0 in Milan, despite having Andre Kana sent off after an hour, which many believed would douse their fire.
Instead Francois Omam Biyik struck six minutes later and the Cameroonians, later reduced to nine men in the 89th minute, held out for an unforgettable outcome.
Other modern-era opening matches may not have produced shock results, but they have invariably been desperately close – like 1998, when Brazil edged out a fired-up Scotland 2-1 at Stade de France, needing a Tommy Boyd own goal in the 73rd minute to clinch it.
The 1994 game was a pretty tempestuous affair, in which Germany edged Bolivia 1-0, courtesy of marksman Juergen Klinsmann netting just after the hour.
There were six cautions and the Bolivians’ Marco Etcheverry received his marching orders.
So yes, funny things do happen in World Cup opening games.
Can hosts Bafana grasp a cue against Mexico, very rapidly upsetting anticipated “normal service”?
You suspect it will be curtains if they don’t …