South Africa Soccer Team
The South Africa national
football team, or Bafana Bafana, is the national team of South
Africa and is controlled by the South African Football Association.
It has recently returned to the world stage after years of
being suspended and expelled from FIFA.
South Africa was first suspended from FIFA in
1962 for the country's apartheid regime. They were re-admitted
a year later, but after deciding to take an all-white team
to the 1966 World Cup and an all-black team to the 1970 one,
got suspended again in 1964. In 1976, after the Soweto uprising,
they got expelled from FIFA.
In 1991, with apartheid no more, the new non-racial
South African Football Association was formed. On July 7,
1992, the South African national team played their first game
in decades, beating Cameroon 1-0.
Since being re-admitted, South Africa made the
1998 and 2002 World Cups, but failed to get out of the first
round each time. They did host and win the 1996 African Nations
Cup and will host the 2010 World Cup, the first African nation
to do so.
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