My foot! Who told coach Hugo Broos that we are underdogs; that we must be ultra-defensive right at the beinning of the 2026 opening World Cup match against Mexico with the scoreline at 0-0?
This is a classic case of being whipping boys; slaves who have resigned themselves to the fact that whatever they do or do not do, the slave master will and must whiplash (sjambok ) them anyway.
In my last column I indicated that Bafana Bafana will play like psychologically-wounded soldiers, but they proved me wrong; they actually played like African slaves ready to accept corporal punishment from the slave master in the form of the Mexican national soccer team.
And like a true slave feeling guilty of being in possession of property that belongs to the master and not him, Sphephelo Sithole literally gave the ball away to his Mexican master Erik Lira who passed the ball to teammate Julian Quinones to score as early as the 9th minute.
I must point out that Sphephelo Sithole’s team, Tondela, was relegated from the Portuguese Primeira Liga this season, just like Burnly FC which lame striker Lyle Foster plays for.
So we have two palookas in the national squad who couldn’t help their club teams avoid relegation, yet we expect them to perform miracles for Bafana Bafana.
I am personally not surprised by Sphephelo Sithole having given away possession because that is what he does game-in-and-game-out while playing for Bafana.
If anyone doesn’t believe me, then I urge them to watch videos of Sithole’s performance in the last Africa Cup of Nations tournament where he and Siyabonga Ngezana were guilty of giving away possession of the ball, and I am thankful that Ngezana has not been selected to be part of the Bafana team this time around.
Sphephelo Sithole has played for his Portuguese club Tondela only 16 times and for the rest of the games he was used as a very late substitute or left to rot on the bench until the end of the game.
I say thanks that he has been red-carded and we won’t see his tomfoolery again.
Now my question is: how can coach Hugo Broos expect to win any game by playing with eight defenders?
The only attackers in that starting lineup against Mexico were ‘non goal-scorer” Lyle Foster and the on-and-off Iqram Rayners.
Tebogo Mokoena, Jayden Adams and culprit Sphephelo Sithole are all defensive midfielders, which means their main task is to defend and not attack.
So, we played without any real midfielders but eight defenders who could not help Bafana to avoid an ignoble 2-0 defeat at the hands of a Mexican team which is not so brilliant and will not go far in the tournament even though they are the co-hosts of the tournament.
For the record, Bafana made only two lame shots at goal, with an equally embarrassing 39% possession of the ball.
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