World Cup 2010 / Ben Lyttleton / 27 October 2009 / Leave a comment

Despite being in terrible form, Ben Lyttleton believes that when the World Cup comes around, the host nation will be ready to have a decent run. Specially if the re-appointed Carlos Alberto Parreira is able to recall a certain Benni McCarthy.

"South Africa cannot score goals, and Santana refused to recall Benni McCarthy, despite even President Jacob Zuma calling for his return. Parreira's appointment may yet allow McCarthy a reprieve."

The memory of South Africa's achievement of reaching the Confederations Cup semi-finals now seems in the very distant past. The World Cup hosts have lost eight of their last nine matches, their only win coming at home to lowly Madagascar ­ and even that was 1-0, and only thanks to the visitors having a clear penalty claim ignored late on.

Last week, not long after losing 1-0 to Norway and Iceland, South Africa fired coach Tele Santana and re-appointed the man who had recommended Santana in the first place: Carlos Alberto Parreira, who had coached the World Cup hosts for a year before standing down when his wife fell ill. The Parreira appointment has been slammed by South African fans, disappointed that a local was once again overlooked for the top job.

And while the Bafana Bafana are a long ([110.0]) to win the World Cup, you have to wonder how things have got this bad this quickly. Well, five of their eight losses were against top opposition: Spain (twice), Brazil, Germany, and Serbia, while the other three were Ireland, Norway and Iceland, all 1-0, and all away from home. This goes some way to proving the point that South Africa do not travel well at all ­ one thing that won't affect
them next summer.

Santana may have been working with a very limited side, but his tactical inflexibility and repetitive line-ups worked against him, as did his inability to get the best out of Teko Modise, the golden boy of the local game who has yet to deliver on the international stage. But his biggest problem was in attack, as those other four games have shown. South Africa cannot score goals, and Santana refused to recall Benni McCarthy, despite even President Jacob Zuma calling for his return. Parreira's appointment may yet allow
McCarthy a reprieve.

In the Blackburn striker's absence, Katlego Mphela is the only player to have scored in their last nine games, while Bernard Parker's brief flurry of goals at the Confederations Cup (South Africa scored two goals in four games and he got both of them) was just that ­ brief.

These are the problems that Parreira has inherited but it is a quirk of the situation that Santana was in a worse position when he took over from Parreira: back then, in April 2008, South Africa had not been good enough to make the last round of African World Cup and Nations Cup qualifying, effectively ranking them outside the top 20 in the continent.

The fact that Parreira has been appointed ahead of any South African boss calls to my mind the theory in Alex Bellos's excellent book Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life. In it, Bellos claims that the phrase "Brazilian Footballer" is like "French chef" or "Tibetan monk", and he quotes an agent as saying, "It's much easier to sell a rubbish Brazilian than a brilliant Mexican. Irrespective of talent, it is very seductive to have a Brazilian in
your team."

And while no-one can argue with South Africa's wretched results of late, Santana has left some legacy from his reign, because his players have now been conditioned for tournament football. They may be struggling desperately now, but they will not be left behind when the real games begin.

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