Historical Steve Pienaar: World Cup Right Up There with Mandela Release

Steven Pienaar, voted Everton’s player of the year last week, believes his side’s opening game of the World Cup will be as historic as Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.

Two days after ending a long, hard season, he said: “I think I’m getting more nervous now, before you used to think it’s a year away. Now it’s weeks, days.

“Walking out against Mexico at Soccer City on June 11 will be a very special moment for the players and for the whole of South Africa...the whole continent. It will be a day of history like when President Mandela got out of prison.”

And he assured British fans, assailed by negative stories in the tabloids: “As a country we’re definitely ready. As a team, we will be ready also.”

At that point Pienaar, with his side ranked 90th in the latest FIFA rankings, laughed. His Bafana Bafana side are the lowest-ranked hosts in World Cup history, but he pointed out: “We’re ranked so low because of one thing. Poor results. It’s also a good thing for us because we know a lot of people don’t expect anything of us. We have to enjoy ourselves, go out and make the best of it.

“We have to give 150 percent for those three games, play for our lives. We’ll take it from there. A lot of people will be disappointed if South Africa don’t qualify but it’s a football crazy country.

“The stadiums will not be empty even if we go out. They want to see the best players in the world and they’re coming to South Africa.”

Recalling his days as a lad in Westbury near Johannesburg, he told the BBC: “My upbringing was tough. I was raised by a single mother in a gang-infested area. But she was really tough. She kept us away from the streets and all the bad stuff. My mother made sure we stayed indoors. Gang fighting and drugs were going on all around you, I was really fortunate my mother was so strong.

“She put discipline on my brother and my sister. Sometimes when I think back, I pinch myself. A lot of things could have happened when I was still in South Africa. But I got the chance to make something of my talent.”