Bafana "as powerful as US military because they couldn't beat Iraq either"
JOHANNESBURG. According to South African officials, the national football team is as powerful as the United States military "because they couldn't beat Iraq either". Meanwhile the team says it was confused by the Young Communists League's call for it to play with "militancy and radicalism", as the laws of football do not allow for the petrol-bombing of the opposition. The Confederations Cup football tournament, billed in South Africa as "not the World Cup", has struggled to fire the imagination of the host country, however delighted officials said Sunday's 0-0 draw against Iraq had put the country squarely on the geopolitical map. According to South African Football Association spokesman Hotfuzz Mxenge, the draw had confirmed that Bafana Bafana were an "unstoppable killing machine" like the US Military. "When you think about it the similarities are spooky," said Mxenge. "They both look ultra-hot when they're doing star-jumps, and neither of them could beat Iraq. I rest my case." Meanwhile Bafana Bafana striker Macduff Phiri says the game settled nerves in the camp. "What we do best is not score goals, so it was good to find that familiar terrain," he told journalists this morning. "By not scoring goals in not the World Cup we're hoping to build up to a point where we can begin thinking about not scoring goals in the World Cup." However, he asked the Young Communists League to stop making confusing suggestions. Before Sunday's match the YCL was widely quoted as calling on the team to "apply the militancy and radicalism of the June 16 martyrs on the field of play by performing well and doing the country proud". Phiri said that while the team respected the YCL's sentiments, it had been "severely distracted" on Sunday by trying to incorporate militancy and radicalism into its game-plan. "For starters, if you want us to play like the kids of June 16, 1976, does that mean you want us to get massacred and only win a tournament 18 years later?" he asked. He said the team had tried to be militant in the first half but that they had been forced to reconsider after midfielders Eros Ramotswe and Elvis Ndebele were yellow-carded for throwing a petrol bomb at the Iraqi striker and setting fire to the referee's car. "We thank the YCL for their enthusiasm and input," said Phiri, "but maybe they could let us figure out how to score goals, and we'll leave them to figure out why they still exist twenty years after the failure of Communism." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
