A return to Europe
Bafana Bafana will face Guinea and world champions France in friendly matches at the end of March. The fixture against the French in Lille is a particularly intriguing one and a real acid test for coach Hugo Broos to see where his young side are in their development. KICK OFF’s Mark Gleeson and Nick Said preview what is one of the toughest assignments in world football.
It will not be the first time that Bafana Bafana go up against the reigning world champions but the match against France in Lille on March 29 has the potential to remind of the national team’s demise rather than progress.
These are not the happiest of days for South Africa, a diminished force not only in the world game but also on the African continent, having not even participated at the Africa Cup of Nations finals in Cameroon at the start of the year.
It is a long time now since the halcyon days of qualifying for successive World Cups in 1998 and 2002 and readying to host the greatest show of them all in 2010.
But failure to get past the group stage of the African World Cup qualifiers, and into the two-legged playoffs, has provided one positive outcome – a prestige friendly of the kind Bafana has not played in years.
The demise of free dates on the international calendar, especially since the creation of the UEFA Nations League, means European counties now rarely play teams from outside their continent.
France are playing two African teams this month in anticipation of the World Cup in Qatar. It is their only opportunity to play against non-European opposition, as in June they have four Nations League group games and then two more in September.
With the World Cup shifted to November, there will be no friendlies in the lead up to the tournament. In fact, the finalists have only a handful of days to assemble their players before they begin the tournament in Qatar.
The game against South Africa at Villeneuve d’Ascq – where last season’s Ligue 1 winners Lille play their home games – will be the second game for the French in the space of four days.
They first take on a much stronger Cote d’Ivoire at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille on March 25, so there is every
chance that France manager Didier Deschamps runs out his second choices against Bafana.
Hugo Broos will continue with an age, rather than performance, based policy and risk a rout unless he picks the right players. His insistence on trying to build for the future cost any chance of going to Qatar where if he picked the best players South Africa might be instead playing in the final round of African playoffs.
The gulf in class and quality is not only reflected in the FIFA rankings but also in recent achievement. France, ranked third, followed World Cup success with participation in the 2020 European Championship, played last year, where they were unfortunate to be eliminated at the last 16 stage, losing to Switzerland on post-match penalties. They then went to the Nations League finals in Iate October and beat Spain in the final. In November they secured World Cup qualification by beating Kazakhstan 8-0 and Finland 2-0 to finish top of their group by six points, ending the campaign unbeaten.
South Africa, who are way down in 68th place in the FIFA Rankings, have failed to qualify for the both the Cup of Nations and World Cup.
Facing teams from Europe
South Africa have not met a team from Europe since an away friendly in Poland in 2012, an astonishing
decade-long wait for the chance.
In fact, they have not played an international outside of Africa since a two-game tour of Central America in 2015 where they played in Costa Rica and Honduras.
It is a far cry from the rip-roaring days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the national team was a big ticket item and top sides were queuing up to face Bafana, then amongst Africa’s elite nations.
Bafana’s first ever game against European opposition was a friendly
against Germany in December 1995, a match played at the unglamorous Johannesburg Stadium.
Germany brought a decent side that included Stefan Reuter, Andreas Möller, Jürgen Klinsmann and Fredi Bobic under coach Berti Vogts, and the game finished 0-0.
It would be another two years, and after their triumph at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations, before Bafana would take on European opponents again, but then the games came in a rush.
They played England, Netherlands, France, Czech Republic and Germany, again, all in 1997 as their status as African champions and qualifiers for the 1998 FIFA World Cup helped elevate the profile of the team.
But it wasn’t until they faced Sweden in the 1999 Nelson Mandela Challenge that they registered a first win against European opponents. Siyabonga Nomvethe scored an 88th minute winner at Loftus Stadium.
To be fair to the Swedes, the timing of the match meant they were forced to select a home-based team, with their players scattered across the leagues of Europe not available. That being said, it was largely the same for Bafana, who were without some leading stars too.
South Africa have played European teams on 42 occasions and won 10 of those, to go with seven draws and 25 defeats.
They have never beaten a team from the continent more than once, but there are some notable scalps, not least France at the 2010 World Cup and then world champions Spain in a friendly in 2013. It was a pretty handy Spanish side too.
Other wins have come against Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Malta, Scotland, Turkey, Slovenia and Poland.
That Slovenian success, also via a Nomvethe goal, was Bafana’s first victory at a World Cup finals in 2002.
Their least favourite opponents have been Spain and Germany, who have beaten Bafana three times before, while England, France, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Italy and Norway have all also had multiple wins against them.
The European teams Bafana have met the most, all on four occasions, are Germany, Spain and France, though with this fixture in Lille, the latter will move to the top of that list outright.
Matches against Spain have perhaps been the most exciting. Apart from that famous win nine years ago, they have also lost 3-2 twice in cracking clashes – at the 2002 World Cup and the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.
Bafana have played 21 nations from Europe, though the last time they met new opponents was Bulgaria in a 2010 World Cup warm-up match.
A tough opponent in Guinea
Before they take on the French, Bafana will also face Guinea in Belgium on March 25.
It will certainly be a test – Guinea are one of only two out of 46 African sides Bafana have never scored against in their history, though the teams have only met twice before.
The other is Sierra Leone, who Bafana have an inexplicably poor record against with no goals in four meetings.
Bafana first met Guinea at the disastrous 2006 Africa Cup of Nations, where they would exit with no points and no goals in their three pool stage matches under coach Ted Dumitru.
The teams clashed at the Harras ElHedoud Stadium in Alexandria in their Group C opener and the game remained goalless until Guinea scored twice late on for a 2-0 win.
The sides played again in a friendly international in September 2008 that was staged at the Lucas Moripe Stadium. This time the hapless Brazilian Joel Santana was in charge as Bafana fielded a largely second-string outfit and lost 1-0.
Guinea reached the second round of the recent Nations Cup in Cameroon but lost 1-0 to Gambia.
Their stand-out player is Liverpool midfielder Naby Keita, while they do also feature Roma midfielder Amadou Diawara and former Ajax Cape Town winger Seydouba Soumah, who most recently played for Kuwait SC but is now a free agent.