The South African National Football team, Bafana Bafana, recently held a training camp in the hot city of Durban in preparation for the World Cup. Being a Durban native and having missed the 6-2 drubbing of Swaziland – there was no way I was going to miss the International Friendly against our other neighbours Zimbabwe. This match also marked Bafana’s first appearance at the magnificent Moses Mabhida Stadium.
It’s 7 o’clock on the dot; I’m not in a drop top – just cruising in the “Kings Park Sporting Complex”. The plan was to find good parking and then kill a bit of time at a nearby spot (Please note: Kill time not visual ability) – well that was until we saw hundreds, no, thousands of fans clad in Bafana gear – walking towards the stadium. Now I’ve been known to confuse kickoff times (and dates, but that’s for another talk show) – so my first instinct was to verify if the correct time was indeed 20h30 and not 19h30. Tickets checked – match starts at 20h30 – so why are these darkies so early? Needless to say – the detour was cancelled – we joined the masses and walked towards the bright lights.
The crowd was so diverse you could’ve sworn that Manchester United was in town.
A bunch of South Africans, Zimbabweans and others singing, dancing, blowing Vuvuzelas – it was a bit surreal. I even bumped into some folks who spoke a language that sounded like German, but then it could’ve been Dutch, maybe even Afrikaans –anyway I was just glad they chose to go with normal shorts and T-shirts instead of stab vests and suits of armour – they weren’t gonna make it in the Durban heat.
The atmosphere was even better inside the stadium – the newspapers gave the figures of around 35 000 fans – it looked, sounded and felt like more than that. The lights went off 20 minutes before kick off – much to the disappointment of the crowd that was still grooving to some Durban jam, a few stayed on so it wasn’t completely pitch-black. The players continued with their drills and it didn’t take long before the lights (and music) were restored – but seriously we CAN’T keep having the same issues at different venues so close to the main event.
The match itself was that of two-halves, with Zimbabwe being the more attacking team in the first half – even though Bafana also managed to create good scoring chances via Teko Modise and Katlego Mphela. Parreira changed some things around in the second half and we saw Teko enjoying more freedom of the park. If anything came out of this game it’s that Knowledge Musona (Kaizer Chiefs &, Zim) is going places and that Bafana NEEDS an on-form Teko Modise – we can only hope that we will see the best from these players in the near future.
Bafana continued to probe the Zimbabwean side of the field with good intent – but the defence proved to be equal to the task – not allowing them clear chances at goal. It eventually took a brilliant piece of skill to break the resilient Zimbabwean defence – that freekick by Tshabalala was a beauty of a curler! It’s really comforting to know that we can count on him, Teko and Mphela to threaten with dead balls.
The second goal was my favourite of the match. A well-worked move that involved the vision of Teko, the skill and pace of Cale, the accurate delivery from Gaxa (for a change) – and Mbuyane meeting the cross with a cool head. 2-0 – and the crowd goes wild! The Mexican Wave, Shosholoza, you name it – I really hope that the cameras were able to capture that energy. There was so much pandemonium in the last few minutes – I think half the stadium missed the last goal scored by Thwala – eish – 3-0, not too much to complain about.
Leaving Moses Mabhida is as easy as leaving your house after watching the game on TV- the stadium has more exit points than the Zimbabwean border. I didn’t miss the concoction of body odours that was a regular feature in the midst of the congestion when leaving the “old” ABSA Stadium – but I did miss listening to people’s opinions as they slowly made their way out.
I managed to eavesdrop on a few conversations – and the consensus was that even though we were pleased with the results from the 2 games – there’s still a lot of work to be done, especially when it comes to taking our scoring chances – everybody knows you don’t get too many of those during the World Cup.
The rest of the people were concerned with playing weak opposition – but in defence, Bafana has more camps and definitely more testing practice games ahead.
I’m guessing that Carlos doesn’t want the players overexerting themselves too early – the team needs to start small and peak closer to the tournament. So in closing, I am quite pleased with the way the preparations are going (and yes, we are STILL preparing) – the team is looking better than it did a few months ago. Big up to the Durban crowd for showing the boys a lot of love – I’m certain that we gave them a major confidence boost.
Our job right now is to support Bafana Bafana, support Africa – and paint a bright picture for the whole WORLD to see!
We’ll be posting some pics that we took (ok, a friend took them) SOON!
By The SportLite ©
Pics: www.football365.co.za