The more things change the more they stay the same for South Africa, whose recent revival has seemingly been ground to a halt after a dismal 2-1 defeat to Cape Verde in a World Cup qualifier in Praia on Friday.
June’s excellent 2-0 victory away in Nigeria at the start of the African Nations Cup preliminaries, coupled with some impressive friendly results, showed the rich potential of the side.
But as with other Bafana Bafana teams over the last 15 years or so, they have shown too they have the potential…
Stuart Baxter has backed experience over youthful energy, but did not go as far as some commentators suggested he would when he named his squad for the FIFA World Cup qualifier double-header against Cape Verde early next month.
Baxter is a ‘horse-for-courses’ type of coach and so it’s perhaps no surprise that he has brought in a few players whose international careers had long seemed dead for the challenge against Cape Verde.
The biggest surprise is the return of SuperSport United’s 34-year-old…
The rise of tiny Cape Verde Islands to be named — albeit briefly — as the best team in Africa was truly spectacular, but equally stupefying has been their fall back to among the also-rans on the continent.
The FIFA World Rankings are a quirky …