BRAZIL LINE UP FRIENDLY

The South African national team will be playing a friendly match against five-time world champion Brazil. The South African Football Association confirmed this news at a recent press conference.

Brazil for qualified for the World Cup 2014 as the host nation for the competition. As a result, they will be not having the usual preparation in the form of the World Cup qualifiers. They have been playing a number of friendly matches against high-profile teams such as Fernando Torres‘s Spain and Lionel Messi‘s Argentina and also upcoming games in order to judge their squad for this major tournament. Brazil are undoubtedly one of the favourites to win the tournament itself.

South Africa were the host of the last World Cup in 2010. This will be travelling to São Paulo in order to face Brazil on 7 September 2012. It is not the first time the South African national team will be taking on the Brazilians. The two teams have already met each other back in 2009 during the FIFA Confederations Cup. Only a Daniel Alves helped Brazil win the match after some stern defending from South Africa. It will be a different Brazil team they will be facing this time around, as the coach has been using a number of young players as preparation for the World Cup.

“We are honoured to be playing Brazil in their backyard as they seldom play friendly matches at home. To us this is a big coup considering it will probably be the first official match for the new Bafana Coach whom we will announce at the end of this month. We are very delighted to announce that we have just received the final confirmation because we have been working on this match for the last six months,” said the chief executive of the South African Football Association, Dr Petersen.