After a historic escape from the group stages, Bafana Bafana were knocked out of the FIFA World Cup by hosts Canada after Stephen Eustáquio’s stoppage time strike, to give Canada a 1-0 win over the South Africans. 

As narrow as the defeat was, its cause was simple. Bafana could not score and went home with a defence that deserved far better than the attack in front of it.

The attacking numbers are brutal. One shot on target across the whole match demonstrated the trend that plagued Bafana, as they head home having scored only two goals in four matches across the whole tournament, only one of which was from open play. Much like South Korea did in their defeat to South Africa, we held the majority of the ball at Los Angeles Stadium and didn’t do much with it.

Bafana worked openings in the first half with some of their tidiest football of the tournament, but the wrong pass, the heavy touch, the shot that drifted wide snuffed out all offensive momentum. Oswin Appollis carried the most menace and had Bafana’s best look of the second half just after the hour, but the effort was always sliding past the post. Late on he forced Maxime Crépeau to move, but again the ball was running wide. Evidence Makgopa, alone at the top, was fed almost nothing he could use. Promising positions kept arriving and kept dissolving. None of them became a real chance and Crépeau, the Canada goalkeeper, finished the night barely tested.

Lacked Power

Speaking on our attacking woes, Bafana coach Hugo Broos was blunt afterward. South Africa, he said, “lacked the power and the speed of their opponents”.

There is an irony buried in that admission. Power and speed is the exact profile of the striker who watched the defeat from the bench. Lyle Foster is the only forward in the squad seasoned in the Premier League, a level of football much greater than the rest of the squad is used to, having turned out nearly 100 times for Burnley.

Here we have a 1.85-metre runner who stretches defences and pins centre-backs, with ten goals in twenty-six caps to his name, more than any other forward Broos took to North America. He started the opener against Mexico, was withdrawn at the interval, and did not play another minute. Against Canada he was an unused substitute for the third game running. Broos had his reasons. Foster scored three times in 26 appearances for Burnley last season, as the club was relegated, with Foster losing his place in the English side, arriving short of confidence.

Despite this, it’s hard to accept that on the biggest stage, with a team desperate for a goal, Broos didn’t turn to his most dangerous weapon.

More Painful

The offensive woes were made all the more painful as the defending was superb. Canada had twelve attempts and seven on target. Skipper Ronwen Williams saved five of them. The South Africa captain was immense, never more so than when he flung himself low to parry Jonathan David from a tight angle after Alphonso Davies came off the bench and gave Canada fresh thrust down the left.

In front of him the back line held its shape for ninety minutes with Ime Okon and Mbekezeli Mbokazi holding off the Canadian attack. Mbokazi produced a last-ditch clearance that, with a different result, might have entered Bafana folklore as a clutch moment in what was overall a standout performance for the twenty-year-old centre back.

Ninety-two minutes in, the wall of yellow finally crumbled. Alistair Johnston launched a long ball forward, the clearance dropped to Eustáquio on the edge of the box, and he struck it first time into the bottom corner. One finish, and the tournament was over.

For South Africa, the exit stings, but the progress revealed is real. This was the first time the country has ever reached the World Cup knockout stage, and Bafana got there on the back of a defensive structure that frustrated opponents when discipline held. In Okon and Mbokazi they have a centre-back pairing to build on for the next decade and despite his age, Ronwen Williams remains one of the most reliable goalkeepers in the African game. The spine is young, organised, and home-grown, a promising position from which to move forward.

South Africa’s struggle to score from open play uncovered the side’s greatest weakness. They need strikers who can both create and finish at this level. They need more of their players testing themselves in the harder leagues of Europe rather than the comfort of the domestic game.

Optimism

The wider picture should give South Africans and Africans as a whole reason for optimism.

A record 10 African nations came to this World Cup and nine of them reached the last 32, giving Africa the highest percentage of sides qualifying from its confederation to the knockouts. South Africa, Ivory Coast, Cape Verde, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo all made the knockouts for the first time in their history and the last World Cup produced Africa’s first ever semi-finalist, when Morocco made the last four.

Although the change in tournament format gives cause for scepticism of the true magnitude of growth for African football, the momentum is undoubtably positive. The distance between Africa and the world’s best is shrinking and should Bafana get the next four years right, who knows how far they can go in 2030?