SAFA president Danny Jordaan addressing the crowd during the Bafana Bafana send-off ceremony with coach Hugo Broos and players Nkosinathi Sibisi, captain Ronwen Williams and Themba Zwane in attendance.
Image: Mihlali Baleka
As the drums beat and the green-and-gold scarves waved inside the Standard Bank hosted send-off ceremony on Wednesday, the mood around Bafana Bafana carried echoes of a winter many South Africans will never forget.
Sixteen years after Siphiwe Tshabalala’s thunderbolt lit up Soccer City in the 2010 FIFA World Cup opener against Mexico, history has strangely circled back on itself.
This time, Bafana again stand face-to-face with El Tri in the opening match of football’s greatest spectacle — a coincidence that even SAFA president Dr Danny Jordaan could not ignore.
“This is rekindling moment of the 2010 World Cup. I think it’s the first time that you have two teams playing each other twice in the World Cup opener. I don’t know if it was orchestrated by FIFA that again South Africa and Mexico open this World Cup,” Jordaan joked.
But beneath the laughter was unmistakable belief.
For Jordaan, the symbolism stretches beyond nostalgia. It is about opportunity.
“It’s a special honour for us to be the opening act for two World Cups and therefore the first match is so important for us given that the top two and other third placed finishers make it out of the group and we hope to indicate that we want to get to the knockout stage.”
The message was clear: South Africa are not travelling merely to participate.
Under Hugo Broos, Bafana have rediscovered resilience, identity and ambition. The scars of past near-misses remain, but so too does the memory of a nation once united behind its football team.
And as another World Cup curtain rises against familiar opposition, Jordaan believes the stage is once again perfectly set for Bafana Bafana to dream.