Johannesburg – Bafana Bafana’s failure of qualifying for the Fifa World Cup has now become an alarming trend, as the ailing South African football team last featured in the World Cup when they were hosts in 2010.
On three occasions (2014, 2018 and now 2022) South Africa failed to make it to the largest world tournament, and several coaches have been shown the door for their failure to qualify, now the question remains if the days are numbers for Hugo Broos.
Broos who had hopes of bringing the glory days back to Bafana, took charge of the national squad in May, this year, taking over the reins from the axed Molefi Ntseki.
In his first charge for leading Bafana, the Belgian headman pulled the squad from dusty streets, and placed Bafana on competing with the best and to prove their dominance, as they took many countries by a surprise.
However, while the mission had to be accomplished, which will have seen Bafana advancing to the 2022 Fifa World Cup next year in Qatar, all dreams were shattered after suffering a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Ghana.
Sports analysts together with the South African Football Association (Safa), have all labelled Bafana’s knockout in the qualifiers as a daylight robbery after the once African champions were knocked out of the tournament following a ‘dubious’ penalty.
It was a poor decision by match official Maguette N’Diaye to give the Black Stars a penalty during the 32nd minute of the encounter, which dented Bafana’s hopes of going to Qatar next year.
This incident became a repeating scenery of what transpired in 2018 en route to Russia, where Bafana failed to qualify due to match controversy after referee Joseph Lamptey was found guilty of match manipulation.
The Ghanaian match official allegedly made decisions during the game on behalf of betting syndicates in Hong Kong and Singapore‚ awarding a dubious penalty and a disputed goal in the 2-1 win for Bafana at the Peter Mokaba Stadium.
South Africa was denied the three points, and Bafana went to the bottom of the standings.
However, they thrashed the Stallions of Burkina Faso 3-1, and had their hopes high.
All dreams shattered when they lost 2-0 to Senegal, and their slim hopes of going to Russia ended there.
Next year’s World Cup will be the third one that Bafana has failed to qualify, since last being involved in the prestigious football competition.
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