Uruguay 3-0 South Africa FIFA 2010 WORLD CUP
It took the first match of the round 2 to bring the world cup to life as the two times world cup winners Uruguay thrashed the hosts South Africa with a clinical display of football. With that the Bafana Bafana dream suffered a shock as they are now at the bottom of the table and will be hoping that Mexico and France fail to notch up a win tonight. No matter what happens in tonight’s game, Bafana Bafana face the daunting task of winning their next game against France if they are to harbour any hopes of making it to the next stage. If they fail to do so, they will be the creators of an unwanted piece of history by becoming the first ever host nation to be knocked out in the first round of the competition.
The match at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium was a typical display of attacking football by the South Americans as they showed no signs of the nerves they displayed in their opening game against France five days ago, in fact this time they played with a certain swagger about themselves nullifying the meek attacking threat that their overwhelmed opponents possessed on the night.
Atletico Madrid’s Diego Forlan underlined the fact why he is one of the best strikers in the world with two goals in the match, despite being deployed in the hole behind the two strikers Suarez and Cavani but his position on the field didn’t matter much as he was the tormentor in chief for the Bafana Bafana last night.
The former Manchester United man opened the scoring on the night with what is perhaps the goal of the tournament so far, a 30 yard dipping shot that gave Khune no chance. Forlan provided a moment of magic when he got ‘The Jabulani’ to display the first sign of spectacular movement in the air, achieving an unusual trajectory going unusually high before taking a sharp dip into the net behind Khune.
It seemed that Forlan’s strike from over 26 yards was destined to land in the crowd, as it dropped over Khune’s head and under the bar into the net before the 42000 crowd in the stadium realized what had just happened. In simpler words, Vuvuzelas took minute to die down, coming to spluttering rather than a grinding halt.
It was nothing more than Uruguay deserved on a night where they dominated from the outset. Every time South Africa came forward with a strong and promising attack they ran out of ideas and invention in front of goal while Suraez, Forlan and Co always possessed more class and poise.
South Africa were in for a torrid time and their miserable night just got worse when their inspirational midfielder, Fulham’s influential Kagisho Dikgacoi was shown a yellow ruling him out of the must win clash against France in a few days time.
Kagisho Dikgacoi was lucky to be on the pitch just after the restart when he intentionally or otherwise he smacked Suarez on the mouth forcing the Ajax front man to bleed. The Uruguayan after receiving treatment was denied a penalty when he was brought down right on the edge of the box by Bongani Khumalo, but made the rest Massimo Bussace wave off the protest.
Suarez however got his side a much more legit penalty when Khune Brough the striker down after being squared by the striker and received a red for his misdemeanour, the red however had Dikgacoi’s name written all over it but where Kagisho was lucky Khune was not.
Forlan dispatched the penalty with remarkable ease, when he chose power over precision and that was game set and match. Uruguay however got another goal before the final whistle when Luis Suarez found Alavaro Perrera on the far post with the simplest of tap ins, even then the player used his head, chest and shoulders to bundle the ball home.
South Africa now face a final game against France without suspended keeper Khune and Kagisho Dikgacoi and only a slim chance of qualifying for the next round.
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