GoalMOUTH is a weekly feature placing the spotlight on various sporting codes, tackling the brutal truth and chasing their rivals — those who try to evade a bit of banter… It’s all about the banter!

Has anybody noticed the rise of Bafana Bafana lately?

Yes, with a major competition such as the Euros currently hogging our screens, it becomes hard to notice some of the smaller nations on show.

Straight off the bat, GoalMOUTH is a Samba King (Brazilian supporter), always have been and always will be. It was the likes of Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Cafu, Roberto Carlos and many other greats before them, such as the legendary Pele, who made me fall in love with this sport.

But, when it comes to my country, I fully support us in everything we do as I am also a huge Springbok supporter.

I must admit, I have been really surprised with the rise in form of our national team, under a manager who took his fair share of criticism when he took the hotseat back in 2021. Bafana Bafana has not given people many reasons to celebrate or support them over the years. Our last major event before AFCON last year, was the World Cup back in 2010, where we automatically qualified because we were the hosts — luckily for us.

Interesting fact, did you know that Bafana Bafana has only ever qualified for tWorld Cup twice out of seven attempts. One year, we came very close. We celebrated, danced as a nation and started to dream of a World Cup. However, minutes later, a goal in another game meant knocked us out.

But with those dance moves, we showed the World we can move!

This is not an attack, please don’t get me wrong. I’m hoping you’d able to see how we are actually improving, because now we don’t dance at all.

We have had a number of failed attempts at qualifying for the African Cup of Nations too, and we begged for a chance to host it just so that we could actually play in it. That is how bad things had become.

But then Hugo Broos came in amid a media frenzy. Many felt Benni McCarthy was better suited. People doubted yet another foreign coach.

Broos was calm about it and handled his business. He stumbled a bit in the beginning but then started to slowly find form with the Sundowns team. Apologies, I meant the Bafana Bafana team. The yellow jerseys confused me and it wasn’t the just that almost 70% of the current Bafana Bafana squad are from Mamelodi Sundowns. It’s not even the fact that the Bafana Bafana team was allegedly being secretly coached on the side by a very successful — and probably South Africa’s best coach at the moment — Rulani Mokwena, after having bagged himself a Seventh PSL title. He was actually seen coaching them in the stands but quickly ran off down a secret tunnel. You have to love how seriously that man takes his job — the passion and love! He built that tunnel himself. It leads directly to each Sundowns’ players’ locker in the Bafana Bafana dressing room. Rulani Mokwena — kindly sponsored by Patrice Motsepe.

Nevertheless, in the build up to AFCON, already Bafana Bafana has started showing glimpses of improvement and we have actually started looking like a competitive team.

With a combination of Sundowns and overseas-based players, we actually looked decent and people again started to become excited. We arrived at AFCON and boy did we impress. We looked hungry. We looked like we were playing for the nation and not for pap and chakalaka after a game.

We didn’t win the AFCON, but we certainly instilled hope in a nation who now believe we may have what it takes.

But I understand why there are still critics. We have had our hearts broken before. Bafana Bafana, treat this like a new relationship. You are getting better and we are noticing but please understand, we were hurt one too many times before.

We have set off on a different quest now, trying to play in another major event, we tried to get into Euros, but apparently only European countries qualify.

We tried to host another World Cup, they said “no” because we should try to play for it. We are playing a little now, so, really, I have hope for us! Get us there Bafana, we see you!