Maseko's Strike Sends South Africa Into the World Cup Last 32
Thapelo Maseko's second-half goal beat South Korea 1-0 and carried Bafana Bafana into the knockout rounds for the first time in their history.
For three previous World Cups and most of a fourth, South Africa had never won a knockout place. Thapelo Maseko changed that in the 63rd minute on Thursday, sweeping in a low cross from Tshepang Moremi to beat South Korea 1-0 and carry Bafana Bafana into the last 32 for the first time in their history.
The win, in their final Group A game, lifted South Africa to second place behind Mexico and set up a round-of-32 meeting with Canada in Inglewood, California, on Sunday. It also knocked out South Korea, whose coach had taken the gamble of leaving captain Son Heung-min on the bench for a match a draw would have seen them survive.
Maseko is 22 and plays his club football for Mamelodi Sundowns, and he is not an exception in this squad. Nineteen of South Africa's players earn their living in the domestic Premiership, a roster built largely at home rather than assembled from Europe's wage bills. That is the detail the result deserves to be remembered for: a side drawn from its own league outlasting one stacked with players from the Premier League and the Bundesliga.
It nearly did not happen. South Africa lost their opener to Mexico and looked done, then clawed back a 1-1 draw with Czechia by pushing forward when caution would have been easier. Hugo Broos, the 74-year-old Belgian who won the Africa Cup of Nations with Cameroon in 2017, had his team go for the win again here rather than sit on a point that would not have been enough.
"The mentality in this group is amazing. Everybody is working for everybody. We are not afraid of other teams."
Hugo Broos, South Africa head coach
Broos framed the final whistle as something close to a valediction. He called it "a rush of emotions not only because we won the game, but also because it will probably be one of the last games of my career," and added that ending a career this way is what "every coach dreams of." Whether Sunday in Inglewood is that last game or merely the next one now rests on a meeting with Canada, another side enjoying its own unfamiliar run deep into a home World Cup. South Africa have already done the thing they came without expecting to do; the rest is profit.
If there is a thread running through this group stage, it is the smaller footballing nation refusing the script. South Africa join the company of teams like Curaçao, who took a historic first point of their own, in making the expanded tournament feel genuinely open rather than merely larger.
