Moments of wayward brilliance and woeful finishing were the overriding features of Bafana Bafana’s 1-1 draw with Swaziland’s minnows at Ellis Park on Tuesday in a nightmarish performance that will probably leave new Brazil-born coach Carlos Alberto Parreira waking up at nights in sweaty disbelief.
It might be classified by the South African Football Association as a training outing and will therefore not go into the Fifa record books as an official international, but Swaziland team manager Polycarp Dlamini says Bafana Bafana should not expect a romp in the park at Ellis Park on Tuesday night.
Not even the spectre of the supposedly unlucky number 13 could derail the Mamelodi Sundowns juggernaut as the rampant Brazilians extended to 13 their unbeaten run of matches in accounting for a gallant, but outclassed, Santos 2-1 at the Johannesburg Stadium on Saturday night.
Don’t think of becoming a soccer coach if you are looking for job security. The sacking on Friday of Wits University coach Boebie Solomons is confirmation enough, with former Bafana Bafana player and assistant coach Eric Tinkler hoisted into the hot seat for Sunday’s game against Moroka Swallows.
Only 48 hours after being drawn to meet in the Absa Cup, Orlando Pirates and Bloemfontein Celtic face each other in a Premier Soccer League match-up of equal importance at Ellis Park on Wednesday night. The Pirates-Celtic rumble could reveal which of the teams are best equipped to challenge for second place in the log.
The bad news is that Moroka Swallows’ Namibian international defender George Hummel is recovering from surgery incurred on a fractured tibia in December and will be out of soccer until mid-April. Hummel, making an unexpected appearance in the game against Golden Arrows on Saturday afternoon, scored the solitary goal of the match.
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/ 25 February 2007
Ecstacy in the Orlando Pirates camp and an electric atmosphere concealed the mediocrity of the football during the Buccaneers’ 2-0 Absa Cup derby win over Moroka Swallows in Potchefstroom on Saturday night. A uniformly robust, relentless Pirates achieved the desperately needed win.
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/ 25 February 2007
Kaizer Chiefs made a first-round exit from this year’s Absa Cup after going down 5-4 in a penalty shoot-out following a goalless extra-time game against Lamontville Golden Arrows. Arrows were the more composed team for most of the 120 minutes of play, but were almost robbed of their triumph through a questionable refereeing decision.
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/ 24 February 2007
Four years ago, Bafana suffered the ignominy of losing a friendly international against Lesotho before a vibrant, capacity crowd at the Lesotho National Stadium — with Safa proclaiming after the match that it was no more than a training runaround. This time, it appears Safa is not waiting for the result before announcing a decision.
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/ 21 February 2007
As if defending Premier Soccer League champions Mamelodi Sundowns have not posed sufficient problems for their opponents of late, up pops the player the Brazilians call ”El Buddah” to further torment Bloemfontein Celtic at Seisa Ramabodu Stadium on Wednesday afternoon.