Luanda – Bafana Bafana will today attempt to achieve a feat only mustered by the great Cameroon side that set the bar for African countries at the World Cup.
When they take on Angola in a second round, first leg World Cup qualifier in Benguela, South Africa’s senior national side will be looking to become only the second outfit to beat the Palancas Negras in their own backyard.
Since their World Cup qualification debut for the 1986 tournament hosted by Mexico, Angola have only been beaten only once at home.
That’s a single defeat in a massive 29 qualifiers at home – and that loss was against arguably the best Cameroon side ever assembled.
That Indomitable Lions outfit that beat Angola 2-1 boasted the likes of Joseph-Antoine Bell, Cyrille Makanaky, Thomas Libiih, Thomas N’kono, Francois Omam-Biyick and had the veteran Roger Milla added to it for the finals in Italy and went on to become the first African side to reach the quarter-finals.
Since that defeat, Angola have gone unbeaten in their backyard in 25 World Cup qualifiers and actually avenged that solitary loss with a 2-0 win over Cameroon in the qualifiers for the 2002 edition that was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan.
While the 25-man squad that Shakes Mashaba has brought here for this afternoon’s clash at the Estadio Nacional de Ombako in the coastal city of Benguela has nothing on that great Cameroon outfit, they can look to South Africa’s own World Cup qualifying record for some inspiration.
Of course they have not been as fantastic on the road in World Cup qualifiers as Angola have been at home (18 wins, nine draws, one loss).
But Bafana have been decent since their debut in the attempt to book a ticket to the global showpiece for the 1994 tournament hosted by the US. In their 18 matches on the road, the South Africans have won on nine occasions, played three draws and been on the losing side six times. That decent record is, however, slightly diminished by the fact that two of those nine victories happened on neutral ground – Bafana beating the DRC in Togo for the 1998 tournament and the Central African Republic in Yaounde, Cameroon in 2013.
They are meeting Angola in their own backyard though and to get that 10th World Cup qualifying win on the road will take some doing from Bafana – something akin to the magic of that Cameroon side which inflicted Angola’s only home loss before going on to dazzle at the finals at Italia 90. - The Star