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Cape Town - It was the bible, no less, that advised "boast not of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
But once again, it seems, Banyana Banyana's failure in the Cyprus Cup has demonstrated SAFA's penchant to ignore this long-standing warning by prematurely praising and complimenting itself.
After Banyana's recent qualification for FIFA's women's World Cup Finals for the first time and going down to Nigeria in the CAF women's final on penalties, SAFA president Danny Jordaan proclaimed "we showed we could hold our own with Nigeria and that means we can hold our own with anyone."
And to make his point, Jordaan suggested that it was the work of the SAFA organisation in its entirety that was responsible for Banyana's achievement - and "by no means an accident."
Unfortunately Banyana "holding their own with Nigeria" and "holding their own with anyone" is far from the same. Nigeria might be the top dogs in women's soccer on the African continent, but worldwide they are only ranked in 39th position - South Africa are in 48th place - and as far as the World Cup in France in June and July is concerned, the Nigerians are not one of the favourites.
And, what is more, Banyana have been drawn in an unusually difficult and testing opening round in France alongside Germany (ranked second in the world; Spain (12th) and China (15th).
This promises to be a far more awesome undertaking for Banyana than the Cyprus Cup in which South Africa finished 10th following losses to North Korea (4-1), Czech Republic (2-1) and first drawing against Finland before losing 3-0 to the Finns on Wednesday.
Making it to the World Cup is no mean achievement in itself on the part of Banyana, but SAFA still seems to be confused in a wider sense about what qualifying for a competition means and what shining in the event entails.
As for president Jordaan's assertion that "we can hold our own with anyone," let's wait and see!
