COME ON BAFANA, for once give me an AFCON victory to celebrate my birthday

Our national team has not won an African Nations Cup match on January 24, and today they face a Tunisia they’ve never beaten in the Group stage.

Excited as I was by Bafana Bafana’s 4-0 demolition of Namibia the other day, I am not sharing in the seemingly blind enthusiasm that is prevailing among my compatriots. 

Of course, I am rooting for our boys to make it to the knockout stages and it would appear they are likely to do just that following that great victory over our neighbours. 

Yet such has been my experience of this beautiful game, particularly where Bafana are concerned at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), that I’d rather advocate for cautious optimism. You see, simple as the permutations are for Bafana to qualify – they need only draw with Tunisia on Wednesday night – what happens on the pitch is often far removed from how things appear prior. 

That we smashed a Namibian outfit that won against Tunisia has got many thinking we have the beating of the Carthage Eagles. I’ve already had a colleague remind me that we beat the North Africans 2-0 when we won the tournament back in 1996 and another was waxing lyrical about how magical it would be if Hugo Broos’ men were to produce a repeat of that gloriously iconic moment in our football. 

And I am with them. I am silently saying prayers for that to be the case. 

I have, however, also experienced some disappointments courtesy of Bafana at this level to know that they are not the type to invest fully in. Leave room for disappointment is my approach when it comes to our national team. 

Against Tunisia in particular, there can be no taking things for granted. Of course, we beat them in 1996. And we also got the better of them in 2000, albeit through the shoot-out from the penalty spot after a 2-2 draw in the third-place play-off.

It is our record against them in the group stage though that has me a little jittery. We all are aware that it is a win or bust for Tunisia, right? They will surely walk onto the pitch with confidence, knowing that they’ve always beaten us during the round-robin phase. We have played them twice and on both occasions we have come a cropper, and I was unfortunate to be at both matches. 

Back in 2006 in Egypt when the late Ted Dumitru’s highly-commended team suffered the ignominy of going through the tournament winless, drawless, pointless and goalless, one of their losses was a 2-0 reverse against Tunisia on a very cold Alexandria evening at the Haras El Hodoud Stadium. 

 Any thoughts that the defeat was but a fluke, an aberration that came about due to Ol’ Loud Mouth’s (Dumitru) naivety, were erased two years later when Ghana hosted the tournament and the two countries again found themselves in the same group. 

Then, Bafana were coached by the revered World Cup-winning Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira and hope had sprung eternal among my compatriots that we would shine on the biggest stage. 

But that was not to be, although the boys did get two points courtesy of draws in the opening and final group matches against Angola and Senegal respectively. But in between Tunisia did the damage, the Carthage Eagles smashing us 3-1 in Tamale. It was a no-contest really, Santos – who had scored in the 2006 win – helping himself to a first-half brace as Tunisia raced to a 3-0 before the break and Katlego Mphela’s goal three minutes from the end merely serving as a sign Bafana were in the match. 

It all paints a gloomy outlook, right? But it could well be a case of third-time lucky for Bafana in group clashes against Tunisia. I certainly hope so, although..... 

There’s this small fact. It is my birthday today – January 24. And twice at the AFCON, I’ve endured disappointment. 

In that very AFCON that we won back in 1996, I went to the old FNB Stadium cock-a-hoop resplendent in a top that identified me as South African and I got the national flag painted on both my cheeks upon arrival at the venue for good measure. 

I, and the rest of the about 20 000 crowd, were in no doubt our boys would reign supreme over Egypt. We had, after all, hammered the revered Cameroon 3-0 in the opening match a few days prior. We followed that up with a 1-0 victory over Angola to secure qualification for the knockout stage. And then there was the small matter of Bafana’s win over the Pharaohs in the Simba Four Nations Cup a few months before. But we lost that match, Mohamed El-Kass scoring the solitary goal of the match. 

In 2002 we were in Segou, Mali and I reported on the goalless draw that Carlos Quieroz’s team played against Ghana, a match that left us worried after two draws and we were to face a Morocco side in the final match that had already beaten Burkina Faso and drawn with the Black Stars. 

I am choosing to be optimistic though and so believe that things will improve this time around – we have lost and drawn AFCON matches on my birthday. Surely, next up it must be a win, right?