South Africa scored a thrilling goal in 55 but conceded a stupid one in 79.
First half, the home team were very nervous, tense, inhibited, scared to support the ball, scared to lose their shape.
Luckily, the lightweight Mexican attack makes a powderpuff look like a sledgehammer.
In 55, just when I was wondering whether South Africa needed more numbers in attack, to make up for their lack of a final ball, they produced a slick move whose sublimely simple geometry released No 8. Tshabalala .
He took one touch into the box and hit a scorching left-foot shot into the far corner.
No inhibitions at all. Siphiwe Tshabalala of the Kaiser Chiefs just smashed the ball as hard as he could and caught the ball perfectly with his instep, as a slow-motion replay showed ten minutes later.
Blanco, the 37-year old striker, replace Carlos Vela in 69.
But then South Africa’s the whole defence was beaten by a sucker ball by Guardado to the far post which left anchorman Rafael Marquez unmarked as the defence came out after a short corner. Marquez and he had unimaginable time and space to bring the ball down and miskick it into the net for 1-1 in 79.
After 81 minutes, Mexico had 58% possession but there were no more goals.
The closest effort came in the 90th minute : a raking long ball allowed big, raw Mphela to power beyond the defence and head the ball on for himself to set up a very dramatic moment. But the centre forward poked his left-foot shot against the outside of the post.
South Africa’s next game is Uruguay on Wednesday June 16.
They will need to improve their defending against Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, the Ajax poacher. Ball-watching will not be an option in that game.
Earlier, ITV pundit Marcel Desailly put his finger on the England problem that’s been worrying me for more than a week.
Desailly asked : How are England going to create the “offensive movement” needed? I’ll do a piece on that tomorrow.