History
South Africa have failed to make it past the group stages in their two FIFA World Cup appearances. Their first appearance was in France 1998, six years after they had been readmitted to the tournament. Despite a 3-0 defeat to eventual winners France in their opening game, they drew against Denmark and Saudi Arabia in their other two group games. They also crashed out at the group stage of Korea/Japan 2002 despite beating Slovenia 1-0 for their first-ever FIFA World Cup win. South Africa 2010 will be the hosts.

Qualification
As hosts, South Africa were not required to qualify for the tournament, and failure to reach the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations left the Confederations Cup as their only real test of the last two years. They didn’t fare too badly, losing to Spain and beating a poor New Zealand side before securing their place in the latter stages of the tournament with a 0-0 draw against Iraq. They faced Brazil in the semi-final, and in front of 50,000 roaring fans matched the samba stars for long periods, losing 1-0 in a very open game, with Steven Pienaar the man-of-the-match. They repeated the level of performance in the third-place play-off against Spain, losing out 3-2 against the world’s number one ranked country. For the remainder of 2009, however, their record was hardly stellar with a solitary win over Madagascar, draws with Japan and Jamaica and losses to Serbia, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Norway and Iceland.

Prospects
The last time so little was expected from a World Cup host nation, South Korea reached the last four in 2002 – but it would surely take some kind of miracle for 2010 hosts, South Africa to come close to repeating such a feat. With the bulk of the squad playing in the South African domestic league, it is very difficult to know how the hosts will fare, but with just three well-known players – Portsmouth’s Aaron Mokoena, Steven Pienaar of Everton and Blackburn striker Benni McCarthy – it will be a steep learning curve for this side. Their preparation has hardly been ideal. Vastly experienced former World Cup winning Carlos Alberto Parreira was drafted in to lead the team into the tournament in 2007 but stepped down in April 2008, to be replaced by fellow Brazilian, Joel Santana. The Confederations Cup aside, Santana achieved little and when Bafana Bafana lost eight games in nine, the writing was on the wall and he was dismissed in October 2009. Perreira then reached an agreement to return but was faced with a team in the doldrums; lacking in confidence and form with leading striker Benni McCarthy out in the cold following a bust up with Santana. Time will tell if he has been able to turn things around, and although the draw could have been tougher, it would be a major success for the hosts if they even made it out of the group.