Parreira revives S.Africa World Cup hopes

Carlos Alberto Parreira has gently lifted the South African national football team from the trough of despair.

And the often poker-faced man from Rio de Janeiro could not resist a quick, self-conscious smile this weekend as “his boys” defeated Denmark 1-0 and extended an unbeaten eight-month run to 12 matches.

A capacity 28,000 crowd filled Lucas Moripe Stadium on a western outskirt of Pretoria and lone striker Katlego ‘Killer’ Mphela sent them home happy with a clinical late second-half winner.

Now the toughest part of the mission given to the 67-year-old Brazilian grandfather begins as he must choose a World Cup team capable of making the host nation proud at the June 11-July 11 tournament.

Bafana Bafana (isiZulu for The Boys) play Mexico on Friday at the 90,000-seat Soccer City stadium on the outskirts of the South African financial hub and former world champions Uruguay and France come after in Group A.

And from Polokwane in the north to Cape Town in the south west the message to the man who guided his homeland to victory at the 1994 World Cup in the United States is identical – coach, make us proud.

Parreria has already brought enormous pride back to Bafana Bafana, a team shunned by its own people last year as they stumbled from one embarrassing defeat to another, and became the object of media mockery.

After a respectable fourth place at the 2009 Confederations Cup, the traditional World Cup dress rehearsal, the wheels came off under Brazilian coach Joel Santana with eight reverses in nine outings.

Losses in Norway and Iceland were the final straw, the axe fell on a man who never captured the hearts of South Africans, and Parreria was summoned for a second spell at the bridge of a ship floundering in choppy seas.

His return was not wholeheartedly welcomed with the issue of salary – reportedly 200,000 dollars a month – angering many in a country where poverty refuses to release its grip on a large percentage of the population.

Many in a vocal domestic media felt the country must cut the Brazil link with Bafana, believing passionately that a local coach could do the job just as well, and for a lot less money.

Parreira knew he would be closely scrutinised and that the rot had to stop. It did. Some of the 12 friendlies were not easy on the eye. Goals were scarce. Administrative blunders denied Bafana some opponents they desired.

But as the country says it is ready to host the World Cup in Africa for the first time, so the Brazilian says he and “his boys” are ready for Mexico, a country that has made the second round in the last four tournaments.

The same words crop up every time the Brazilian gives a news conference or post-match interview – national pride, confidence, retaining possession, keeping the ball on the ground, having a shape on the pitch.

As national flags flutter from cars in the swankiest and poorest suburbs of Johannesburg, World Cup fever has taken a firm grip and a once sceptical public has faith in Parreira to deliver the dream of at least a last-16 place.