South Africa suffered a major setback in their hopes of qualifying for the next World Cup after they were beaten 5-0 by World Cup 2014 hopefuls Brazil. The national team has been steadily improving over the last five years, but this is a major setback for the team. It has also put to the future of manager Gordon Igesund in major doubt. Even before the match, it was heavily speculated that Igesund would be leaving the South African national team. Even though Igesund tried to avoid questions about his future in the post-match press conference, he stated that his future will be decided by the South African FA.
It was a brilliant performance from Brazil, who managed to score through goals from Neymar and Oscar. The Barcelona forward scored a hat-trick in the match, while the Chelsea midfielder got one for this account. Manchester City’s defensive midfielder Fernandinho completed the rout. Even though this was a disappointing result, Igesund felt that his team played extremely well over the 90 minutes. He says that the only disappointment was the final third where Brazil were much more clinical.
Brazil are the favourites to win the World Cup 2014, while South Africa have managed just one World Cup appearance. Brazil hold record with five trophies to their name.
“We played against a very, very good team. It wasn’t a bad performance, but they were just so much better than us.
Their decision-making in the last third was much better than ours. They were very clinical, especially Neymar – he was outstanding tonight. But at the end of the day there was a good lesson learned. A couple of youngsters got out onto the park and they will learn a lot from this,” said Igesund. South Africa’s next match will be against Australia towards the end of May.