News24 | WATCH | Bafana legends speechless after ‘worst performance under Broos’

Bafana Bafana legends and South Africans in general were left speechless, perplexed, and some even lashed out after a disappointing display by the national football team in their 2-0 loss to co-hosts Mexico in the World Cup opener in Mexico City on Thursday.

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Former Bafana players who also represented South Africa at World Cups at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, Benni McCarthy and Quinton Fortune, alongside 2010 World Cup captain Aaron Mokoena were simply lost for words in studio where they were on the panel for SportyTV.

Defeated sighs and shifting eyes filled the kind of silence that comes when there is just nothing one can say.

Mood in South Africa right now 🥺🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/uTfpTeuEiI

Mokoena told News24 on Friday morning: “It’s a sad one. We couldn’t believe what had just happened.”

If Phillip was here in South Africa during the week in the build-up to the match, he has evaporated into thin air overnight after what felt like a failure on Bafana’s part to show up and fight against the 14th-ranked Mexicans.

It was the first time an opening fixture was repeated in the history of the tournament after the teams had met at Soccer City in Johannesburg 16 years ago to the day to raise the curtain of Africa’s first World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

Every player in this South African squad was making his World Cup debut.

Maybe it was a tactical approach that had apparently armed them with tablespoons in a knife fight.

Needless to say, in an Estadio Azteca cauldron of some 80 000 hostile Mexicans, the puff in South African chests was deflated on world football’s grandest stage before the confetti had settled after the opening ceremony.

Bafana Bafana made a big World Cup history last night, therefore the coach must appear at Madlanga Commission 1. First country to lose in the 2026 World Cup up with 5 defenders 2. The first team to collect 2 red cards in the history of the World Cup first matches.3. Themba… pic.twitter.com/jHyUvfUOv5

The immediate and constant high press from the hosts was an early show of intent to intimidate the 60th-ranked South African team who were appearing at a World Cup for the first time in 16 years.

The eighth-minute opening goal scored by Julian Quinones came about through the kind of error that suggested a South African team frozen under the bright lights of the occasion.

As the Mexican attack corralled Bafana in their final third, timid and hesitant exchanges of short passes at the back invited the intimidation in.

Inevitably, it