South Africa World Cup 2010 Team Profile

April 5th, 2010 | by: Daryl |

South Africa are the hosts of World Cup 2010, and will be in Group A with France, Mexico and Uruguay. Not an easy draw, and the pressure will be on for Bafana Bafana to at least get out of the group stage.

Read on for the full South Africa profile, and feel free to disagree with any of the below in the comments.

Nickname: Bafana Bafana (The Boys)

FIFA World Ranking as of March 31st 2010: #88

Coach: Carlos Alberto Parreira is not South African, he’s Brazilian. But he’s not any old Brazilian, he’s the man that won the 1994 World cap Cup, ending Brazil’s 24 year World Cup drought. He also coached Kuwait in the 1982 World Cup, the United Arab Emirates in the 1990 World Cup and Saudi Arabia in the 1998 World Cup. He also returned to coach Brazil at the 2006 World Cup. But that didn’t go as well as the first time. Parreira took the South Africa job in 2007, a big name for a big job, but had to resign in 2008, due to his wife’s illness. Compatriot Joel Santana was his unsuccessful replacement, and Parreira returned to the job in late 2009.

Key Players: Aaron Mokoena is South Africa’s captain and currently their most capped player. He’s a physical defender, but has been part of a depressing Portsmouth team in the English Premier League this season. At least he has the World Cup to look forward to. Steven Pienaar is a creative midfielder/winger with a few tricks up his sleeve and (usually) a silly haircut. Striker Benni McCarthy has been on and off with international duty lately, but is South Africa’s all-time top scorer and most accomplished striker having notched goals in the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and England. UPDATE: McCarthy was not selected in the final South Africa squad.

Player with best YouTube video: Steven Pienaar.

Player with best name: Siphiwe Tshabalala. Fun to say.

Player with best nickname: Aaron Mokoena is known as “Mbazo” or “The Axe”. Which is why we recommend opposition strikers get out of his way.

Qualification: As tournament hosts, South Africa qualified automatically. But because Africa Cup of Nations 2010 and World Cup 2010 qualification were merged, South Africa still went through the qualification process, and were knocked out in the Second Round.

Interesting: When 6ft 6.5in centre back Matthew Booth has the ball, the South Africa fans sound like they’re booing him. But they’re not, they’re just doing a long chant of his name: “Booooooooooo-ooooooooooth!”.

National Anthem: The South African National Anthem diplomatically mixes the two pre-apartheid anthems into one, and also incorporates five of the most widely spoken languages in South Africa. A masterpiece of reconciliation.

Read more about the <a href="“>South African National Anthem here.

Kit: Yellow shirt, green shorts, green socks. Home jersey looks like this:

Read our review here, or buy your South Africa jersey here.

World Cup History:
1998 – First Round
2002 – First Round

Expectations I’m 99% sure that every World Cup host has at least made it past the first round, so pressure is on South Africa to get out of the group stage. That said, I suspect a brave showing and a near miss (eg: failing to qualify but only on goal difference) would be just about acceptable.

Squad: Find the South Africa squad on our World Cup squad page.

Blog: Matt and Chris are covering Bafana Bafana on the South Africa blog.

- More World Cup 2010 Team Profiles.

International Football News – World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Coconut

is this a new segment? or is this replacing South Africa’s world cup history? Either way, it’s good info for people who want to know about their team’s opponents in the group stages.
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

New segment Coconut. We’ll definitely do a World Cup History for all 32 teams, as well as 32 of these team profiles.
ahmad

is the “interesting” fact true? cause i’ve read a lot of articles about this “boooooo” chant and how it is connected to racism….good to see that it actually isn’t :)
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

I’m 99% sure it’s true. It definitely happened during the Confederations Cup last year, and definitely in a positive way.
matt

the interesting fact could be that booth is also the only white dude…
Seth

This is a bit OT, but Daryl who is your pick to win the World Cup??
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

I’m not keen on making predictions to be honest Seth, because I always feel that pretty much anything can happen at a World Cup, but if I had to pick a team most likely I think I’d go with Brazil. We’ll definitely do more prediction type posts as we get a little closer to the tournament.
Paul S

The reality is that the entire country is on the verge of exploding. If you have a death wish, head over there for the WC by all means. If you have a family or other responsibilities, I urge you to reconsider. I speak as a concerned South African who is very well acquainted with the violence and criminal situation there.
johanr

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH!!!