“I came to South Africa because as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup it was a challenge. This is the real part of the job that I like, the challenge of starting from the bottom and working up,” Parreira says. He gambled by taking a young squad to the Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana, leaving out several regulars to use the opportunity to expose young players to the rigours of international competition. But with supporters demanding success at every turn, the coach knew he would have to face a barrage of criticism and even calls for his head were the team to underperform in Ghana.
A cacophony of complaint is there, but in the main, South African fans are well aware of the need for time to build. It does not happen overnight. ‘As a new team, I think we went home with some positive things. My young players learnt a lot about high-level football and the process of learning goes on,” says Parreira. “We are satisfied with some things but for the World Cup, of course, we need to improve a lot. I think we have no other option but to carry on with the players we have at this moment. We took a young team to build a team to represent South Africa in 2010 in the best possible way. It’s a learning process. In building, you have to pay a price.”

Frustration and disappointment have been etched onto his face at times over the last 12 months as results have not gone his way, but his broad Brazilian smile comes to the fore when things start shifting into place, although this was not really the case at the recent Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana. South Africa had hoped to reach the last eight, but in the end they managed j ust two points and were handed an early exit.
Yet it was not all bad news. The team played a flowing brand of football with quick interpassing exchanges and swift movements sweeping them past their opponents, exactly the style that Parreira has sought to get the team playing with wing backs bringing the ball up the flanks and the midfielders pressurising their opponents.
Parreira, a coach at five previous FIFA World Cup™ tournaments, has been critical of what he calls “goalkeeper to goalkeeper football” in South Africa, with the ball forever in the air. “It’s a tough job to change the philosophy, telling the players that instead of walloping the ball, they must pass it,” he says.
The groundwork, especially at youth level, leaves a lot to be desired in South Africa with enthusiastic volunteers encouraging dribbling and tricks rather than instilling the basics of the game like a competent first touch or completing a pass. So Parreira has started from scratch in a sense, having to work on the foundations that he assumed would be in place before his arrival.

The South African organisers want to replicate the fervour and joy that was so central to the last FIFA World Cup™ finals that were a staggering success, but Bafana Bafana, South Africa’s national side, have been tumbling down the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking in recent years and they have persistently failed to achieve on the international stage, which was why Carlos Alberto Parreira has been brought in to build a side for the 2010 FIFA World Cup’™.
He has been in his post for just over 12 months now and it is certainly a daunting task. “It is like having to start from scratch,” says the Brazilian, consistent in his criticism of South Africa’s poor youth and amateur structures, which have likely cost the country many potential stars who have slipped through the net.
Parreira ran into an immediate storm upon arrival in South Africa in January 2007, the size of his salary dominating the headlines. He admitted that he was initially shocked and surprised by the mixed reception, but he is evidently warming to the task of coaching Bafana Bafana.