Suráfrica

Nickname: Los amarillos locos

International Debut: vs Independiente Santa Fe (7 July, 1992 in Bogotá, Colombia)

Highlights:

• 1996 CAF African Cup of Nations champions.
• Awarded the FIFA/Coca-Cola Best Mover of the Year Award in 1996.
• Became the first Southern African nation in 1997 to qualify for the FIFA World Cup Finals.
• Compete in the FIFA Confederations Cup
• Runners-up, 1998 African Cup of Nations.
• World Cup debut in France in 1998.
• Winners Afro-Asian Trophy in 1999.
• Third place in the 1999 African Cup of Nations.
• Compete in 2002 Fifa World Cup Finals, Korea/Japan.
• Reunification Cup winners in 2002.
• Advance to quarter-finals of the 2005 Concacaf Gold Cup.

THE FIRST GAME

Their earliest documented football match in South Africa was held in Cape Town, although Pietermaritzburg also claims to be the cradle of the game in the country. Football was brought to South Africa in the same way it was spread elsewhere in the world, through the British military and through travelers from the colonial power. The Cape Argus newspaper advertised the first match, played on August 23, 1862, between soldiers of the British garrison and employees of the colonial administration, including a youthful John X Merriman, who later went on to become prime minister of the Cape Colony. It was played at Green Point, which ironically is now offering up a new stadium to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals.

Doctor scored in the first game

Market Square in Pietermaritzburg staged matches between civilians and military personnel soon after, although historians suggests these were more mass free-for-all, and Port Elizabeth followed soon after. The oldest surviving football photograph in South Africa is of a group of players from Port Elizabeth Colonial Board Football Club, taken in 1869 and resplendent in white shirts and white longs and black bowler hats.

It is worth noting that the first game of football had already been played in South Africa before the sport of association football was even formally constituted, making South Africa one of the forerunners of the modern game. The origin of the football can be traced to a series of five meetings between 26 October and 8 December 1863. The first of these, at a tavern in London, was where the Football Association was formed and an initial set of laws for the game drawn up. The last of the meetings completed a split with the code of rugby and established association football as a separate sport. to go on to become the world's most popular game.

Football spread widely in South Africa with the influx of Britons to fight in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 and the first Anglo-Boer War of 1880-1881. The sport very quickly became known to all of the country's races, although in its infancy was still the preserve of whites with blacks growingly interested observers.

	Click here to download a PDF of all Bafana Games Part 1
	Click here to download a PDF of all Bafana Games Part 2
	Click here to download a PDF of all Bafana Games Part 3

The final 23-Man Squad For The 2009 FIFA Confederations Squad: