Poor South Africa

colly_06

South Africa's national football team did a lap around the stadium and danced in front of cheering fans to celebrate making the African Cup of Nations.

Small problem: South Africa didn't qualify.

Its 0-0 draw with Sierra Leone left South Africa tied with Niger and Sierra Leone, and ahead on goal differential -- which is usually good enough to advance.

But the Confederation of African Football used head-to-head results among the three teams as a tiebreaker.

That sent Niger to the tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and left South Africa out.

"Let's hear what CAF says," coach Pitso Mosimane said in a TV interview. "Did we qualify? What do you think? If we've qualified I'm very happy.

"I don't know."

With Egypt dominating Niger in Cairo, South Africa played defensively in the second half of a scrappy match believing a draw would be sufficient.

Niger lost 3-0, and its players didn't celebrate, despite making the continental championship for the first time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL8uIgRZ_yM

A Dub in Glasgo

You would think somebody in the SA camp would have checked the tie break criteria before the game

The_Kew_Tour

And we taught having Dana running for president was embarrassing eh!

ArmaniJeanss

Interesting that erstwhile heavyweight contenders Algeria and Egypt finished bottom of their qualifying groups. Democracy seems to be -EV for football success.

As for South Africa it must have been that an entire stadium made the same mathematical blunders that Dunphy made after the Russia game.

"So are we ahead of Niger on head to head? 2-0 at home, 1-2 away. Yep".
"Are we ahead of Sierra Leone on head to head? Well it was also 0-0 away and we have better goal difference, so yep we're ahead of them also".
"So our head to head against both is superior so we must have qualified, lets party".


Except no-one bothered to check the 3-way head to head.
Beautiful really.

Iang87

maybe if they spent less time blowing vuvuzelas and more time reading rules there wouldn't be an issue

mosstin

Delighted. Play the ****ing game. Score more goals than they do if you can. They didn't so they're out. Tough ****.

Diabhal Beag

Same thing happened to my U-8 team when we were younger. Except it was a Galway-West B-League and not African Nations Qualification.

Mars Bar

Steven Pienaar's tweets sums it up!

madma

Good enough for them!!

funniest thing I've read about in a while

Dearg81

Niger lost 3-0, and its players didn't celebrate, despite making the continental championship for the first time.

Did Niger not celebrate because they lost 3-0 or did they not know the rules aswell?

ILikeBananas

Just looking through the different groups there. Some really big teams didn't qualify. Along with South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon are also out.

Egypt, as the defending champions, coming bottom of their group is the biggest shock of all though. I mean, I know that they've a brutal record of qualifying for world cup tournaments but the african nations is their tournament. I doubt they've ever failed to qualify for it before.

ArmaniJeanss

They are appealing on the grounds that head-to-head is patently unfair and that goal difference is 'the universally recognised method of seperation'. (Obviously none of them must play in Serie A or La Liga, which also use head-to-head).
http://www.goal.com/en/news/1659/south-africa/2011/10/10/2704000/south-african-fa-lodges-appeal-with-caf-over-african-cup-of

The safs are taking our 'most pointless appeal ever' title away from us.

mikeym

From looking at the youtube video the tv commentator thought South Africa had qualified aswell.

Noo

One google search of "CAF head to head" and its as clear as day that they released a statement at the start of September with the rules for this type of qualification situation. If I, someone with absolutely no interest in the qualification for this tournament, can find the rules in 0.2 seconds yet no one in South Africa could be bothered to look then frankly they deserve it!

Ganymede Glow

If they want they could ask John Delaney how best to go about it. If anyone knows how to sort this type of stuff out its him