Johannesburg - So much for thinking that Ted Dumitru’s goalless, winless and pointless squad of 2006 were the worst episode in Bafana Bafana’s Africa Cup of Nations history.
Worse was to come as the South African national soccer team failed to qualify for two successive tournaments, the first coming in the year that should have been our year - 2010.
As the first African nation to host the Fifa World Cup, you would have expected us to begin the year on a high to indicate to the world that we would be a worthy host.
But Joel Natalino Santana failed to book us a place at Afcon 2010 that was hosted by Angola. And so it was that for the first time since 1996 we were forced to pick teams to back other than our own.
I didn’t particularly have a favourite for the tournament that began on a very sad note when the Togolese national squad were victims of a terrorist attack as they made their way through the province of Cabinda from their training camp to their tournament base.
The sight of a crying Emmanuel Adebayor with his hands on his head at the side of the road where his team bus had been ambushed, leaving three members of the squad dead, was heart-wrenching.
And then Caf pulled a stinker by banning Togo from the next tournaments after the Sparrowhawks pulled out of the tournament. How insensitive! But then the custodians of the continent’s football are a heartless group who care mainly about lining their pockets.
Safety issues in Angola sorted out, the tournament - now contested by 15 countries instead of the usual 16 - kicked off in style, the hosts and Mali treating the 45000 crowd at the Estadio 11 de Novembro and the millions watching on television to a scintillating 4-4 draw. Unsurprisingly, two of the hosts’ goals were from the penalty spot.
Egypt were once again crowned champions, their third success in a row and their seventh title overall as they cruised past the opposition, the Pharaohs scoring a whopping 15 goals and letting in just two in their six matches.
Bafana Bafana also had us adopting a team for the 2012 tournament for which they failed to qualify. Remember the celebratory dance in Mbombela that Itumeleng Khune and his teammates engaged thinking they had qualified?
What a tournament Gabon/Equatorial Guinea turned out to be. I still get goosebumps remembering Zambia’s triumph.
I remember that poignant moment when Kalusha Bwalya led the Zambian contingent as they laid wreaths at the spot where the Chipolopolo team of 1993 perished following a plane crash.
Bwalya should have been on that plane but because he was playing in Europe didn’t take the flight from home with his fellow countrymen and was going to join them in Dakar, Senegal.
Now, nearly 20 years on, King Kalu was back at the spot to pay his respects along with a young squad most of whom were toddlers at the time of that disaster.
As if spurred on by the
spirits of their departed predecessors, Zambia went all the way to win the tournament as they defeated the outright favourites Ivory Coast on penalties.
It was the kind of script not even Hollywood could have come up with. That Bafana Bafana were not there didn’t take away from this being a memorable tournament as our region won only its second Afcon title.