Wednesday, June 17, 2009

South Africa 2 - 0 New Zealand: A Peformance to be proud of from Bafana

Tonight Bafana Bafana made me proud to be a South African Soccer supporter. After all the 'grief' we(SA Soccer fans) have to put up with it was great to see such a positive performance from the National Team.
Tonight the team played like South Africa. The flair, the skill the passion and pace that was lacking in the previous game against Iraq was there in ubandance tonight. The final score may have been 2-0 in favour of Bafana but it could easily have been 4-0 or 5-0 if Masegho had his scoring boots on tonight and were it not for a string of great saves from the New Zealand keeper Moss.

I'm not going to bore you with my usual lengthy match report because I'm sure majority of you will have watched tonight's game. Santana came into this match under a lot of pressure but he will have silenced his critics after this performance. Bafana were buzzing in attack tonight, 20 shots at goal verifies this. But it wasn't just the shots on target which impressed me. It was the way the team played with total belief in their abilities, little flicks and tricks were the order of the night as the likes of Pienaar and Modise ran riot. Tshepo Masilele was an absolute joy to watch down the left flank and he will surely have attracted attention from scouts at the tournament with a man of the match display.

Bernard Parker was the star of the night though against the All Whites. Our new number 17 scored both goals with clinical finsihes either side of half time, taking us one step closer to reaching the Semi Finals of the Confederations Cup. Katlego Mashego missed a couple of sitters but his positional play was amazing and I think he should be given a start against the Spaniards. Another player who impressed me last night was Siphiwe Tshabalala, even though he was only on the pitch for 10 minutes he showed why he is being heavily inked with a move overseas.

Overall it was a great team performance from Bafana, Santana and the supporters at The Royal Bofakeng Stadium. A draw against Spain on Saturday will be enough to book our place in the Semi-Finals.

Bring on the Spaniards!

2 comments:

  1. Hey man.... Yeah i was really proud of the boys yesterday. For some reason there were moments of brilliance, some great 1-2's and passes from Pienaar. Which was aweseome...

    However i think the Score should have been at LEAST 4-0, if they had finished off nicely. I think they need to work on the BMT (Big Match Temprament) .... Cos they seem to choke up infront of the goal... other then that i think the skill is there!

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  2. I agree, the score was not a true reflection of the game last night. I can't remember the last team I've seen us playing like that. New Zealand aren't the best oposition but it was still an encouraging performance.

    The skill is definitely there, the guys just need t follow Parker's example and take their chanches against Spain.

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