{"id":38102,"date":"2026-06-26T12:05:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=38102"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:05:48","slug":"sa-football-team-eye-world-cup-success-after-historic-qualification","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-football-team-eye-world-cup-success-after-historic-qualification\/","title":{"rendered":"SA football team eye World Cup success after historic qualification"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) national soccer team Bafana Bafana are high of confidence after they qualified for the International Association Football Federation (FIFA) World Cup round of 32 for the first time in their history.<\/div>\n<div>\nHugo Broos men have now landed in Mexico, Pachuca where they have been residing during the group stages of the tournament to collect their belongings and head to Los Angeles for the knockout stage.<\/p>\n<p>Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton Mckenzie has praised Bafana Bafana on the milestone that they have achieved so far in the FIFA world Cup tournament in the United States (US).<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\nThe Bafana players have become the first group in country&#8217;s history to reach knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup competition.<\/div>\n<div>\nThey did so in style after completely dominating South Korea in their last must win group game on Thursday.<\/div>\n<div>\nBafana set to kick-off knockout stage games in the US on Sunday, there is little to no time to waste.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The team is now heading to Los Angeles to start with preparations for their much-anticipated round of 32 game against Canada.<\/div>\n<div>\nBafana have been camping in Pachuca, Mexico for the group stage games of the tournament.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":38047,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-38102","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Bafana are high of confidence after they qualified for FIFA World Cup round","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38103,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38102\/revisions\/38103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}