The Bafana Bafana players currently doing duty in the African Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Egypt suffered the shock defeat of their careers, and it was not only on the field of play.
The players expected a groundswell of support for their demands for more pay, probably banking on the entrenched contempt for the South African Football Association (Safa).
What they got instead was, at best, a sympathetic ear from those for whom Safa could do no right.
Overall, the local lads got a basting from the local media unimpressed by the players’ attempt to hold the association hostage by refusing to play unless Safa gave in to their last-minute demands for a higher match fee than what was originally agreed on.
The team effectively suffered two defeats in a row (the results of the match between Bafana and Tunisia were unknown at the time of going to press). They not only failed to read the Guinea game plan — to attack through the flanks — but also failed to read that the antipathy towards Safa had bounds.
Coach Ted Dumitru had promised that a new Bafana Bafana would be born in Egypt. But what was on show was that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
In keeping with tradition, the nation’s 40-million or so coaches came out with ”I told you so” analysis of what they had ”predicted” were Bafana’s Achilles heels.
What was lost in the wailing and gnashing of teeth was that — ignoring Dumitru’s grandiose prediction that his side would lift the cup — the team to Egypt is a developmental one.
Whether using a tournament of Afcon’s magnitude to blood new players is by now moot.
The end of the local side’s participation in Egypt ought to give the local scenario planners — whoever these may be — a fair idea of what needs to be done in preparation for hosting the World Cup in four years’ time.
One of those up for assessment would be whether Dumitru’s treatise, that physical attributes are over-rated in football, is true.
Officials will come and go. So will coaches. The only constant will be the players — many of whom already believe themselves ready for the tough international scene.
Of the 23 chosen for Egypt, 13 will be 30 or younger in the year South Africa hosts the World Cup.
These exclude the two goalkeepers Avril Phali and Calvin Marlin, who will turn 32 and 34 respectively. It is a footballing axiom that goalkeepers peak in their 30s.
This number of outfield players does not include the likes of Aaron Mokoena, whose terms of retirement are linked to Dumitru’s tenure as coach, the injured Steven Pienaar and the curiously excluded Nasief Morris.
Naturally, new talent will continue to be uncovered and the promise shown by some of the players in the current squad may prove to be a false dawn.
The period should also be useful for those players who need to learn how contracts work so that they save everyone the embarrassment of trying to renegotiate at a time when the rest of the world has arrived for the biggest football extravaganza.
If we learn from our mistakes, all things considered, South Africa’s Egyptian adventure may prove more useful than it at first appears.