The BIGGEST reason why Bafana won’t qualify for 2026 World Cup

The last time Bafana Bafana qualified for a FIFA World Cup was back in 2001.

Shaun Bartlett and Benni McCarthy both scored for Bafana as they recorded a 2-1 win over Zimbabwe at the FNB Stadium.

The win saw South Africa securing a second successive World Cup qualification with two games to spare.

Since then, Bafana have failed to qualify for four Fifa WC editions excluding the 2010 where they automatically entered as hosts.

In 2006 WC qualifiers, under Stuart Baxter, Bafana started well but fumbled against Congo DRC and Burkina Faso but one should also note that they also faced a strong Ghanian team led by Stephen Appiah and Michael Essien.

BAFANA’S ONLY APPEARED IN THREE WORLD CUPS, FAILED IN FIVE ATTEMPTS

Since then, it has been a downward spiral for the 1996 Afcon winners.

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The biggest reason why Bafana has failed to qualify is due to lack of our players in Europe.

The majority of the 2002 team selected to play in the Korea/Japan WC were based overseas and playing regularly. Lucas Radebe, Benni McCarthy, Delron Buckley and Sibusiso Zuma were top players in their respective teams often featuring in the Champions League. Quinton Fortune, was another top player for South Africa, and although he was deployed on the bench for Manchester United, he was a key player for the national team.

The 2002 squad looks massive compared to the 2010 Bafana squad that got eliminated in the first round. In reality though, the 2002 squad under Jomo Sono, also looked much weaker on paper at least, compared to Nigeria, Senegal and Cameroon back then.

Fast forward to the 2022 WC in Qatar, no African team(in that tournament) had less than 80% of overseas based players in their squad.

When you look at teams like Senegal, Morocco and Cameroon, they all have players playing in the Premier League, Serie A and La Liga and in fact, all west African countries did not have a single player playing in their domestic league.

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Now look at Bafana and compare.

In their last encounter against Morocco, Hugo broos’ men featured nine PSL players and they impressively managed to beat the 2022 WC semi-finalist. One should note that the Afcon qualifier match was a dead-rubber as both teams had already qualified, and to add to that, the North African giants also drew with Cape Verde a few days before.

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The reason Bafana can get an odd win against top African teams in friendlies and Afcon games is that there’s a small gap between good teams and average teams in Africa and often if an average team plays their best football, they tend to get results. However, that can’t be sustainable for a period of six games hence why teams like Zambia, Bafana and Mali struggle to qualify for World Cups. The X facctor remains, quality will always prevail over quantity.

In conclusion, having 80% of your squad playing in the DStv Premiership won’t get us to the 2026 World Cup. Our league is average at best and from time and time again, we failed to produce world class players or at least develop quality players who dominated European leagues.

Until SAFA puts focus and money on development, our Bafana team will always consist of 8-10 PSL players in their starting line-up.