• The silence was deafening in studio where former Bafana players Benni McCarthy, Aaron Mokoena and Quinton Fortune were rendered speechless after full-time of South Africa’s 2-0 defeat by Mexico on Thursday.
• Former Orlando Pirates midfielder Michael Morton called it the worst performance by Bafana under coach Hugo Broos.
• If Phillip was here this week, he was MIA in South Africa on Friday morning after Bafana failed to show fight in their World Cup opener against the Mexicans.
• For more World Cup news, go to News24 Sport’s dedicated section.

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.

ANALYSIS | Bafana’s World Cup shambles: Poor preparation, tactics leave SA on the ropes

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.

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.

Perhaps it was stage fright.

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.

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 led to the hosts drawing first blood after goalkeeper Ronwen Williams, instead of clearing the ball out, opted to pass to Sphephele Sithole, just ahead of him, who would be the victim of an ambush in waiting before Quinones struck.

If the plan was to ride out the storm of the opening exchanges without conceding, Bafana had already capitulated, despite coach Hugo Broos opting for a five-man defence – perhaps an overly conservative approach.

Of more concern was that South Africa did not respond.

They continued to be bullied by El Tri and their fans, who had already jeered as the team came out to warm up before kick-off, booed at every touch of the ball by the Bafana players.

Then the uncharacteristic thuggery set in in the second half as the South Africans lost their heads: the hapless Sithole was handed a red card soon after the restart after clattering into Marcel Ruiz Gutierrez.

When Mexico led 2-0 after Raul Jiminez’s 67th minute goal, it was the red cherry on a bad cake when Themba Zwane, the elder statesman in the group, earned his marching orders, albeit debatable, for a deliberate hand to an opponent’s face to reduce Bafana to nine men after the v80th minute.

This is not the Bafana we know, the team that sings and dances as they step onto the field.

Former Orlando Pirates midfielder Michael Morton, who attended the match in Mexico City, was as scathing as he was disappointed in his review of events on social media.

“It literally couldn’t have gone any worse,” he began.

“Probably the worst performance from Bafana under Hugo Broos, which is just so disappointing given the occasion.

“The most frustrating thing is I just don’t feel like we had a go. To set up 3-5-2 (the three central defenders Mbekezeli Mbokazi, Nkosinathi Sibisi and Ime Okon at the back were flanked by wing-backs Khuliso Mudau and Aubrey Modiba) obviously setting up to try and get a point, and then when you concede really early from a mistake, your whole game plan is out the window.

“I can imagine everybody at home are just as frustrated – to come all this way, on the biggest stage, 80 000 people, the whole world watching and we don’t have a go.”

Broos had selected two strikers up front in Lyle Foster and Iqraam Rayners, but they were starved of service by a midfield that lacked creative impetus and a linking number 10 as Teboho Mokoena, Sithole and Jayden Adams adjusted to a new formation in an electric atmosphere.

“Our two best players, for me, Oswin Appollis - he’s been our best player for the last two years - doesn’t start a game, Rele (Relebohile Mofokeng) doesn’t touch the field... Yes, that’s probably the most disappoint thing. It’s the hope that kills you,” Morton continued.

“We didn’t have a full go. You feel like, when you come here, have a go. If you go down swinging and it doesn’t work it, then that’s one thing.

“But when you come here and you’re tame and you’re meek and you don’t try to attack the opposition... If it wasn’t for Ronwen, we were probably 3-0 down by half-time.

“I think the body language from the players showed me that they weren’t convinced with that formation, that style of play.

“And as soon as we were 1-0 down, to be honest, the body language was pretty terrible.”

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who once called Bafana “a bunch of losers” was more sympathetic this time of South Africa on a subdued Friday morning after in Mzansi.

Bafana next take on Czechia (Czech Republic) in Atlanta on Thursday, 18 June, when they will be under pressure to resuscitate a campaign that had the objective of reaching the knockout stage of a World Cup for the time in South Africa’s history.

The only senior national football team to reach the knockouts of the World Cup was Banyana Banyana in 2023.