Kaizer Chiefs and Bafana Bafana legend, Brian 'Spiderman' Baloyi, says he would like to see a final between Argentina and Brazil in the upcoming 2014 World Cup which commences on June 12.
The former shot-stopper, who was famous for his acrobatic saves, also seemed to be sceptical about the chances of the five countries representing the African continent at this year’s showpiece, saying that he is hoping they will have their moment of glory in the 2018 World Cup.
Baloyi participated in South Africa's first appearance at the World Cup in France back in 1998, where Bafana Bafana were unable to make it past a group that included the likes of France, Denmark and Saudi Arabia.
He told the Siya crew, “I’ve got my ultimate favourite team and that is Argentina. I’d love to see an Argentina v Brazil final. My favourite European teams are Spain and Holland, so I’d like to see a Spain v Argentina and Holland v Brazil in the semi-finals. But again, I’d love to see an African team doing better than the quarter-finals, but we can’t read too much into the friendly games we’ve been seeing. I don’t know... there’s not much hope in the teams that have qualified, more especially Cameroon and Ivory Coast because they’ve kept the core of their mostly older players.”
“Nigeria is a dark horse I think. They are promising. Their group is difficult, but not difficult again. They might be able to make it out of the group and hopefully make it to the quarter-finals. I think it’s about time Africa started planning professionally for these big tournament," he added.
Baloyi concluded by saying, "When you look across the leagues in Europe, we have a lot of African players that are prominent in their teams, and it still baffles me why these countries are not able to put together an incredible team that can compete. I think we missed the boat when it was here in Africa. Maybe in 2018 we will do better, because it will be played in Europe, where most of our players ply their trade,” he added.
