South Africa manager Pitso Mosimane made a bit of history at the weekend by becoming the first manager to lead an entire nation astray. He convinced himself and everyone else in South Africa that the Bafana Bafana needed only a draw against Sierra Leone in order to make it to the finals of the AFCON in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
So they followed the game plan and played out a goalless draw in Nelspruit. After that the players and coaching staff and everyone else did a grand celebration.The players also ran a lap of honour and the state-run African Broadcasting Corporation proclaimed qualification. Except, they hadn’t qualified at all.
They actually had needed to win their game against Sierra Leona. He completely forgot about the the head-to-head ruling. Niger went through in the qualifications instead of both South Africa and Sierra Leone. CAF released a statement on Saturday to confirm Niger had qualified instead of South Africa, quoting from the rules that were published before the start of the final round of qualifiers. It said Niger had six points in games against South Africa and Sierra Leone. The other two only collected five in the head-to-head contests.
South Africa are crying “foul” and are appealing the decision but that’s a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
And the video shows them celebrating not realising that the horse had bolted…!