Qualifying blunder leaves South Africa down and out
Fifteen months on from the elation of receiving wide praise for staging a triumphant Fifa World Cup, South African officials are now plumbing the depths.
In case you don't know, Bafana Bafana failed to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations on Saturday after a 0-0 draw at home to Sierra Leone.
But that tells a mere fraction of the story, for the real problem was that South African FA (Safa) officials were so unaware of the rules that they erroneously believed that a draw was good enough to take them through.
Late on, coach Pitso Mosimane even threw on a midfielder for a striker to shore up the points only to later ask: "Do you think I would have left (a striker) on the bench and put on a midfielder if I knew we needed a goal? It doesn't make sense."
Born in Wimbledon, my enthusiasm for the global game was already sizeable before the tragic demise of the boys from SW19. Having covered football in over 50 countries, I've been working in the BBC's African sports section since the early noughties, recently spending three years in Africa to report on the run-up to the continent's first World Cup.
