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No Olympics for Amaglug-glug
14/10/2007 23:00 - (SA)
Johannesburg - What South African soccer officials had naively viewed as a formality at the start of the campaign was on Sunday afternoon transformed into bleak failure as Amaglug-glug went down 3-1 to Ghana's Black Meteors at the Elwak Stadium in Accra and surrendered all hope of qualifying for next year's Olympic Games in Beijing.
From Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, to Amaglug-glug's enduringly optimistic Steve Komphela and the Safa rank-and-file in general the catch word had been what a wonderful opportunity in building a squad for the 2010 World Cup the Olympic soccer tournament was going to provide for the country's budding stars.
Instead, South Africa's Under-23 team has slumped ignominiously to the bottom of their qualifying group with a draw and two defeats from their three games, with African heavyweights Ghana and Nigeria left to slug it out for the right to compete in China next year.
And in an uncanny repeat of the 3-1 defeat against Ghana in the home game at Potchefstroom's Olen Park, Amaglug-glug again trailed disasterously 2-0 at halftime and were again ultimately subjected to a stunning brace of goals from the lethal Asamoah Gyan.
It would be surprising if Komphela and his players are now not subjected to recurring nightmares of the bustling Ghanain striker, who provided them with an abject lesson on how to capitalise on scoring opportunities.
Stuttering and spluttering
An Asamoah header had Ghana on the road to victory in only the 13th minute and a second headed goal from Bernard Kumordzi in the 36th minute left Amaglug-glug stuttering and spluttering in their bid to gain the victory that would have kept their slim hopes of Olympic qualification alive.
Santos striker Eleazer Rodgers belatedly brought South Africa back into the picture with a headed goal in the 55th minute after an impressive build-up by Daine Klate and Bryce Moon.
And, with Ghana briefly demonstrating signs of panic after this setback, Amaglug-glug were almost on level terms 10 minutes later when a miscued Black Meteors' clearance ricocheted off the post instead of providing a much-needed "own goal".
And with the sands of time running out for Amaglug-glug, Asamoah was on hand to record his second goal of the game and fourth in the qualifying tournament against South Africa, launching, in the process, the Black Meteors and their supporters in the 10 '000 crowd into orbit.
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- SAPA
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