The latest win against New Zealand should hopefully go some way in erasing the memory of our draw against Iraq. Someway, somehow Joel Santana has turned Bafana into a working machine! The previous villain of the Iraq match; Bernard Parker became the hero and man of the New Zealand match after slotting in both goals for South Africa.
Parker said: "I'd like to thank my coach who showed a lot of faith in me by starting me for this game. I liked the way we played, full of confidence."
Santana added: "We had to win this game but we played well in defence, midfield moved well and they were fast in attack."
Even more impressive than the win was the packed stadium. I expected most of the fans to be at the Brazil and Spain matches. But well done to S.A for actually supporting Bafana. Rustenburg was only 6000 short of 40 000 which proves to FIFA that we do have the fan base. The fans were singing and dancing our local chants and urged Bafana on to run rings around not just the New Zealand defence but the whole team.
Unfortunately for Thembinkosi Fanteni his goal was ruled offside, one of the things we should look at is beating offside traps. If so South Africa could have tripled no... quadrupled their lead.
Next thing on Santana's list should be improving our strikers so they stop those missed chances that we tend to have because we are sure going to need it against Spain come Saturday.
Source: www.supersport.com
