Bafana Bafana fans finally get their reward as Mosimane era opens with a win

Orlando Stadium was packed, and the men and women in the stands got something they hadn’t seen in a while: a Bafana Bafana team that won. For years, supporters had been told to be patient, to trust a rebuilding process, to endure. This time they got a result to celebrate on the walk home across Johannesburg.

Pitso Mosimane began his latest spell in charge with a 2-1 win over Guinea, opening South Africa’s 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign. The goals mattered to the players who scored them and to the crowd that watched them go in. Ime Okon put South Africa ahead, and Samukele Kabini settled the match 13 minutes from time. For fans who filed out of the stadium afterward, three points felt like something worth holding onto, proof that belief in this team might not be misplaced after all. There’s comfort, too, in having a coach whose name is built on winning things, whatever comes next in qualifying.

Rugby told a different story, and it belonged to a different set of people entirely, players in green and gold jerseys, travelling supporters who made the trip to Perth, and fans back home who stayed up or woke early to watch. The Springboks lost to Australia 42-38 in a chaotic Test that resists easy explanation. The Wallabies finished with only 11 players on the field and still won, which tells you something about how wild the match became. In fairness to the world champions, they fielded a heavily changed side, 14 alterations from the team that beat New Zealand in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series. That context means little to the players who took the field, or to the supporters who watched it unfold from the stands or their living rooms. Australia leave with the Mandela Challenge Plate and, more painfully for South Africans, bragging rights. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, there was quiet satisfaction. Having lost the four-Test series to South Africa 3-1, the All Blacks found fresh reason to smile when Australia did them such a generous favour. Sport has a habit of turning your fiercest rival into your temporary favourite team.

Cricket gave South African sports lovers the release valve they needed. On Pink Day at the Wanderers, a crowd dressed for the occasion watched Temba Bavuma and David Miller each reach three figures, powering the Proteas past Australia by 32 runs. The win sealed the ODI series 2-0. It was a clinical performance, and it gave fans a second reason to celebrate inside a single weekend. Between Bavuma’s innings and Miller’s finishing touch, there was plenty to talk about over braais. Two centurions sharing the same day made it a little easier to set the rugby result aside, at least for a few hours.

Football elsewhere stayed complicated, though it touched South African fans differently. Manchester City continue to carry the weight of their long-running Premier League case, 115 alleged financial-rule breaches, with relegation or expulsion still hanging over the champions. Supporters following that saga could be forgiven for wondering whether loyalty now comes with legal fees attached to the season ticket. The full reckoning is still to come.

Taken together, the weekend explained why South Africans keep showing up for their teams despite everything. A national football team finding its footing under a familiar coach. Cricketers delivering under lights and pink-clad crowds. Rugby players humbled on the other side of the world, while a bitter rival quietly enjoys the fallout. Nobody knows what comes next, and maybe that uncertainty, painful as the weekend was for some, is exactly why these games matter so much to the people who follow them. Until the next whistle blows, the advice from the stands stays simple: keep backing the local sides, keep the arguments going over braais and text threads, and expect the unexpected.