It was an evening full of football nightmares for Bafana Bafana, in fact it was back to school as World Cup champions France taught the South Africans a lesson on the basics of football.
The Bafana team, under the guidance of Belgian coach Hugo Broos, were embarrassingly walloped 5-0 in their friendly match at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, Lille on Tuesday night.
It was typical of the South African minnows, a side ranked 68th in the world being pitted against the reigning world champion France, a team that is standing tall and are occupying the third spot in the Fifa rankings.
The scoreline could have been worse had it not been for the daring saves by Bafana skipper and keeper Ronwen Williams, a man who stood his ground and had to fend off numerous attempts from top Les Bleus forwards Kylian Mbappe, Olivier Giroud, and Antoine Griezmann.
In the end, pacey and hard-running Mbappe’s brace, Giroud’s strike and two goals from Ben Yedder and Matteo Guendouzi saw the Les Bleus, a side that played as though they were having a practice match, emerging convincingly victorious on the night.
The French entered the Lille arena for this encounter with the view of using it as part of preparations for the defence of the World Cup title they won in Russia four years ago when the Russians hosted the Fifa global football showpiece in 2018.
With the French already 2-0 up via strikes by Mbappe and Giroud before Swiss referee Sandro Scharer signalled the end of the first stanza, Bafana’s only attempt at pulling one back came when Nyiko Mobbie crossed the ball to Lyle Foster, but French keeper Mike Maignan was on hand to pick up Foster’s weak shot at goal.
The second half was characterised by Les Bleus’ dominance and at time, more so towards the end of the match, the French players ran rings around their African opponents passing the ball around among themselves as they looked for more openings.
The French side has now extended their winning streak to seven matches without a loss as they look forward to the first World Cup to be staged by a Middle Eastern country when Qatar welcomes the 32 finalists in November.
French manager Didier Deschamps’ team remains unbeaten throughout their World Cup qualifying stage, beating Finland twice, Belgium, Spain, Kazakhstan and Ivory Coast.
To rub salt into the already gaping wound, Bafana were reduced to 10 men when substitute defender Khuliso Mudau was sent off with six minutes remaining after a video assistant referee check showed he had dangerously fouled defender Lucas Digne.
Former Arsenal and Chelsea striker Giroud, who is 35 years old and made his comeback to international football against Cote d’Ivoire last Friday, has now recorded 48 goals for Les Blues from 112 matches, only three goals shy of Thierry Henry’s record of 51 goals from 123 games.
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