South Africa

The Bafana Bafana opened their Group A campaign on Friday with an encouraging 1-1 draw against Mexico at Soccer City. After a disappointing first-half performance, left winger Siphiwe Tshabalala put the hosts ahead on the hour with a fearsome left-footed strike. The goal appeared to spur on the hosts and South Africa started to gain more of a foothold in the match.

However, the Mexicans hit back through a Rafael Marquez goal 12 minutes from time but the South Africans came agonisingly close to stealing it when Katlego Mphela’s (200-1 Top Goalscorer) strike struck the post in the final seconds.

Despite the disappointment of the draw, Parreira remained upbeat about his side’s chances of making it through to the last 16.

“We could easily have won the game, but all in all a draw was a fair result,” said Brazilian Parreira. “We are still in the competition. This group is very tough.”

Parreira, who is coaching at his sixth World Cup, including coaching his native Brazil to victory in 1994, says his team initially froze under the pressure of being hosts as they were totally outplayed by the Mexicans in the first half and struggled with the expectations of their nation.

However, he says he was pleased by how his side adapted to the situation and did well to fight back well to put in a creditable performance in the second coming close to making a winning start to their campaign.

“The opening game is always a lot of pressure and today was no different,” the Brazilian said.

“Most of our team are a home-based team, players who are not used to this big environment, and we tried hard to adapt to this ambience, but after 15 minutes we started playing our game, putting the ball on the ground.”

Parrerira says the draw puts the South Africans in an ideal position to qualify from their group which also includes former winners France and Uruguay. No host nation has ever failed to qualify from the group stages and the Bafana Bafana coach is confident his side will not be the first and has pinpointed the final group game against France as the key match that will hopefully see them qualify for the knockout stages.

He added: “This group will be decided in the last game against France.”

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