Host of problems as World Cup looms

Apart from crime, stadiums, and transport - it's the "embarrassing" national team that concerns South Africans.

The man responsible for organising next year's World Cup in South Africa has become used to answering questions about whether everything will be ready. Standing outside Soccer City, the enormous new stadium in Soweto built to resemble a brown African cooking pot, Danny Jordaan, a slightly portly man in a black blazer, reels off practised lines about stadiums, transport and crime.

He is a polished media performer, the perfect front man. Until, that is, we start talking about football and in particular the performance of the host nation. He sighs. A weak smile plays on his lips and he looks away. "Why do you have to ask about my team?"

Ever since South Africa was awarded the 2010 World Cup the stream of stories about the lack of preparations has not let up. Stadiums would not be ready, the transport system would not be able to cope, shockingly high crime levels would put off all but the most committed fans from overseas.

But another fear has gripped South African football fans: what if the country is ready, but the team is not? On the brink of the biggest moment in South Africa's sporting history, the woeful performance of the national football team threatens to spoil the party.

The World Cup-winning Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, brought in on a multimillion-dollar contract, has resigned. The country's star striker, Blackburn's Benni McCarthy, is refusing to play. And for the first time since the end of apartheid, South Africa has failed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations.

No host nation has ever failed to reach the second round of the World Cup. The USA managed it in 1994. Both Japan and South Korea did it in 2002 - the Koreans going all the way to the semi-finals. South Africans fear their team could be the worst hosts in history. "It could be really embarrassing," says Robert Marawa, the country's most popular football broadcaster.

When South Africa first explored the idea of hosting the World Cup, at the end of the 1990s, the football team was the least of its worries. Bafana Bafana, as the national team is known (it means "the boys, the boys" in Zulu), had returned to the international fold with a bang.

While the sight of Nelson Mandela in a Springbok shirt at the 1995 Rugby World Cup final was heralded as the birth of the Rainbow Nation, it was a victory the year after which showed South Africans at their most united. Bafana won the 1996 African Cup of Nations, beating Tunisia 2-0 in the final at the old Soccer City.

It seemed as if the 1996 victory would herald a sustained period of success. In 1998, Bafana reached the final of the Nations Cup and qualified for the World Cup for the first time. But it didn't last. The decline has been steady, with each Cup of Nations performance worse than the last. Bafana now stand at 77 in the Fifa rankings.