South Africa achieved its first victory in the 2026 World Cup, 1-0 over South Korea, and secured its place in the 32-team stage on Wednesday night (24) at the BBVA stadium, in Monterrey (MEX).
It is the first time that Bafana Bafana have reached the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Korea, on the other hand, has 3 points and has a chance to continue in the competition as third place, which will be defined after all group games.
When it hosted the competition, in 2010, South Africa ended up not progressing to the knockout stage on goal difference, finishing third in its group, behind Uruguay and Mexico.
This time, however, the performance was surprising. The debut was a 2-0 defeat to Mexico, followed by a 1-1 draw with the Czech Republic. This Wednesday, the victory over the South Koreans drove the fans crazy.
The South African goal was scored 17 minutes into the second half by Maseko, after several failed attempts since the start of the duel.
Mokofeng made an individual play on the left, created space and played for Maseko to dominate, spin and hit with his left leg, with no chance for the South Korean goalkeeper.
Despite the party, the South Africans will have a difficult duel in the next phase, when they will face Canada, second in Group B, on Sunday (28), at 4pm (Brasília time).
In the other duel in Group A, host Mexico was already ranked first, but took no notice of the Czech Republic at the Azteca stadium and won 3-0, reaching 9 points, with 100% success, to the delight of the fans in Mexico City.
In last place, with just 1 point, the Czechs say goodbye to the World Cup.
As expected, Mexico rested some starters, such as Lira, Brian Gutiérrez and Raúl Jiménez, and had a balanced first half with the Czech Republic, who tried to break through the rival defense mainly with aerial balls, to take advantage of the greater stature of their players.
In the second half, however, Chávez opened the scoring at 9 minutes, which gave a new direction to the duel. In the play, Romo beat the marking in midfield and played for Chávez to shoot unmarked, invade the area and touch goalkeeper Kovár.
Quiñones doubled the score in the 15th minute on a counterattack. Jorge Sánchez received it from Mora and shared it with goalkeeper Kovár. In the remainder, Holes tried to clear it, but Quiñones appeared to send it into the net.
With a two-goal lead, coach Javier Aguirre brought goalkeeper Ochoa onto the field in the 31st minute, replacing Rangel. It is the sixth World Cup played by the 40-year-old goalkeeper.
He took the opportunity to celebrate his team’s third goal, in the 48th minute, when he started the play with a goal kick.
Alvarado picked up the ball, shot on the right wing and passed it to Santi Giménez to shoot over the goalkeeper. Fidalgo took the surplus and closed the score.
First in Group A, Mexico needs to wait for the end of the first phase to find out their opponent in the 32-team stage, which will be a third-placed team from Groups C, E, F, H or I.
