The Monday Miscellany

There are certain similarities between the South African football team – Bafana Bafana, as they are usually known – and the Springboks, the country’s rugby union side.  Both escaped a nervy fixture on Saturday: the footballers progressing to a FIFA Confederations Cup semi final against Brazil on Thursday despite a 2-0 loss to Spain, thanks to Iraq’s failure to beat New Zealand; the rugby team hanging on for dear life to beat the British & Irish Lions 26-21 at ABSA Stadium in Durban.

They are both indebted to a high-quality but barely fit number ten called Pienaar: Steven, the Everton winger, who missed the opening match against Iraq; Ruan, the fly half, whose four penalty goals won the first Test against the Lions, with the Boks outscored by three tries to two.  And the both, the constant needle in the side of South African sport is still present: race.

But then, there is a tendency to overdo the issue as significant progress has undoubtedly been made.  South Africa’s hero in the rugby was a black prop named Tendai Mtawarira, who breaks the old stereotype of the Springboks consisting of 13 white men and two fast black wings.  Mtawarira, albeit on the very border of legality, destroyed Phil Vickery in the scrum in the first half, inducing many of South Africa’s decisive penalties.

And Bafana Bafana’s fans have a new cult hero in 32-year-old Matthew Booth, a white central defender who stands at six feet six inches, stands out for many reasons other than his skin colour.  In a back three alongside Aaron Mokoena and Benson Mhlongo, he is head and shoulders above his partners, and not just in terms of his height.  Strong in the air and adept with his left foot, it is not hard to see why Booth made a decent fist of a career in Russia with Rostov and Krylia Sovetov for seven years before his return, earlier this year, to Mamelodi Sundowns.

There was still room, though, for a few South African papers to jump the gun and find racism where it didn’t exist.  The crowd – mostly black – appeared to be booing Booth from the word go against Iraq.  Was this a sign of what certain reactionary types like to call ‘inverse racism’?  Were black South Africans, for so long excluded from rugby union, making football their own turf?

Actually, no, they weren’t.  They were merely chanting ‘Boooooth’, in the same way that Manchester Utd fans used to sing ‘Ruuuuud’ whenever Ruud van Nistelrooy scored a goal at Old Trafford.  Booth is one of South Africa’s most popular players and it is not hard to see why; he is without conceit, hard working and one of the squad’s more able players.

Contrast this with Benni McCarthy, now public enemy number one in South African football due to his perceived ‘laissez faire’ attitude to the national side.  He is not in the Confederations Cup squad and sensible people are not putting money on him returning for the World Cup.

It is a relief that South Africa reached the semi finals; it will at last give them some momentum ahead of next year’s World Cup.  They are clearly not a great side but in striker Bernard Parker – two goal hero in the win over New Zealand – they have a potential source of goals and Steven Pienaar and Tsepo Masilela bring quality out wide.  The World Cup needs a strong South African side to match the fine atmosphere in the grounds.

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Speaking of which, if we are going to have an African World Cup we might as well permit it to feel African.  If the vuvuzela, the confounded horn that is evidently the scourge of football commentators and pundits throughout Britain, is part of local culture then it must be part of the World Cup.  At least in the years following the World Cup, you’ll know when you’re watching a clip from the tournament.  And it’s no worse than those horns at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

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Has there ever been a more sensational comeback from an international side in a final group stage match than the United States last night?  They had to beat Egypt by three goals to finish above the north African side and then hope for a miracle in Pretoria and that is just what happened, with Brazil scoring three times in a devastating nine-minute spell at the end of the first half against an Italian side lacking fight and quality.  But even the Italian defense, for so long its great strength, looked hapless with Fabio Cannavaro now looking every one of his 35 years.

The USA beat Egypt 3-0 but had to cling on in the dying minutes; had either Egypt or Italy pulled back to 3-1 the Americans would have finished bottom of the group.  It is a long time since a team with two defeats progressed through an international group, save for the bad old days of 1986-1994 when the World Cup had six groups and four of the third-placed nations qualified for Round 2.

There was Chile in 1998, who finished second in Group B without winning a match, drawing 2-2 with Italy and 1-1 with Austria and Cameroon.  Curiously, Belgium also drew their three group matches in that tournament but due to other results were eliminated behind Holland and Mexico.

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European football seemed to be turned on its head on Thursday when England Under-21s beat their Spanish counterparts 2-0 in Gothenburg playing fine football, James Milner particularly showing class to come back from missing a first-half penalty to scoring the second goal in the 73rd minute, set up by a run down the left from Theo Walcott.

Walcott was demoted to the bench following his anaemic performance in the narrow win over Finland in the opening match but put his pace and fresh legs to good use against Spain’s shaky defense which gifted Fraizer Campbell the opening goal.  England had speed aplenty in attack, while Spain’s was largely insipid.  After no goals in two matches, they are virtually out and lack the potency and artistry of their senior side.

There were optimistic signs too in central midfield.  Fabio Capello has long held concerns about England’s lack of a genuine holding midfielder – he clearly does not rate Phil Neville in the rôle and Owen Hargreaves’s knee could bring his career to a premature close – but Fabrice Muamba was outstanding and Lee Cattermole also excelled.  For too long Cattermole has looked like a red card waiting to happen but against Spain he was composed, assured and authoritative.

We mustn’t be too hard on the Spanish.  They were indeed desperately poor against England; they had plenty of possession and passed the ball neatly but lacked penetration and their finishing – on the occasions when they had the opportunity to test it – was wayward, either off target or straight at Joe Hart.  But consider the plethora of players born in or after 1986 who were absent, otherwise engaged at the Confederations Cup.  Would a Spain U-21 team containing Sergio Ramos, Gerard Piqué, David Silva, Juan Mata, Cesc Fàbregas and Sergi Busquets have been so outclassed?

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In the end, it appears Fergie did try to ‘sign him up’ but Carlos Tévez decided he wasn’t really at home at Old Trafford and now faces the difficult (ahem) choice between Manchester City, a team not playing in Europe and unlikely to challenge for the title next season, and Chelsea, who are.  Tévez at Stamford Bridge is a salivating thought, especially in partnership with either Nicolas Anelka or Didier Drogba.

Chelsea, though, have already gained two forwards this summer, while one, the Israeli Ben Sahar, has been sold to Espanyol.  Claudio Pizarro and Andriy Shevchenko return from loan spells at Werder Bremen and Milan respectively and there is every chance that both will spend the season at Chelsea.  Shevchenko will be impossible to offload but the fact that he continues to score for Ukraine – he netted in the 2-2 draw in Croatia earlier this month – suggests that he still has quality even if his pace has disappeared.

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The final round of Asian World Cup qualifying was a political minefield; would South Korea take it easy against Iran in Seoul to help North Korea get knocked out?  Would the instability at home affect the Iranian side?

There was something heartening about the Iranian players’ demonstration, wearing the green armbands of the opposition, and their performance was good.  Iran will rue, though, the late equalizer of Park Ji-Sung which, coupled with North Korea somehow holding on for a 0-0 draw in Riyadh sees Iran eliminated, with Saudi Arabia taking the play-off berth in Group B.

Group A closed with a dead rubber in Melbourne, Australia defeating Japan 2-1, and a key match in Riffa in which Bahrain beat Uzbekistan 1-0 with a fine free-kick from Mahmood Abdulrahman to seal the play-off place.  They meet over two legs in September with the winner facing New Zealand for the 32nd and final spot in the World Cup.

But it is the qualification of North Korea that grabbed the headlines and leaves FIFA shuffling nervously, hoping no reason emerges in the next year to have to expel the side they continue to term ‘Korea DPR’ from the tournament (though an Iranian success would hardly have dispelled that fear).  What if North Korea should be drawn in the same group as the United States, they were asking on the BBC message boards.  In reality, it would probably end up an orgy of public relations niceties in the mould of America’s meeting with Iran in 1998, when the team captains Ahmadreza Abedzadeh and Tom Dooley exchanged flowers, pennants and book tokens before kick-off.