GROUP A/South Africa 0 Uruguay 3:THOSE DIEHARDS still harbouring a grudge over events of last November in Paris can join some 50 million South Africans, the boys in Fifa and, most likely, a couple of billion neutrals in cheering for the hosts next Tuesday.

Bafana Bafana must now beat the French in their last group game if they hope to maintain local interest in this World Cup beyond the first round after going down, a little tamely, to Uruguay here last night.

For all his many talents, Carlos Parreira proved incapable of inspiring a fightback after his side fell behind to Diego Forlan’s first half strike and a second half penalty by the former Manchester united man combined with the sending off of South African goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune effectively sealed the outcome 13 minutes from time although Alvaro Pereira then headed home a third in the final seconds of the game.

Parreira’s influence on his men is clearly evident with much of their movement looking well orchestrated but some of his work on the training ground backfired when a carefully plotted kick out handed Uruguay the chance they needed to open the scoring after 23 minutes.

For all of the host side’s early kick outs the centre halves had parted leaving an awful lot of space between them while the full backs had taken up very wide positions about 10 metres short of the half way line.

All went well until Khune attempted to pick out his left back, Tsepo Masilela, who failed to control and, more importantly waved an apology to the goalkeeper when he should been concentrating on make amends for it.

The Uruguayans reacted somewhat more smartly to seize the opportunity and despite the locals getting bodies back Forlan let loose from the edge of the area with a looping shot that grazed Aaron Mokoena on the back of the head and flew into the net off the underside of the crossbar.

The Atletico Madrid striker was again the lynchpin of the Uruguayan side over the course of the game, hovering dangerously between or behind fellow strikers Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani in a team reshaped by coach Oscar Tabarez in order to place more emphasis on attack than there had been against the more formidable French.

The 31-year-old also delivered a succession of a well-weighted frees from around the area, many of which the locals struggled to deal with, most memorably when Diego Lugano rose unchallenged early in the second half only to find that he had mistimed things to the extent that properly directing his attempt on goal was all but impossible.

Though he’s really an attacking midfielder, the South Africans looked to Steven Pienaar to perform a somewhat similar role to Forlan but the Everton striker found it difficult to make an impact on this occasion.

For a start, the defensive part of his game was hampered somewhat by the fear that he might pick up a second yellow after he was shown a first for stupidly breaking out of a wall early on to charge down a Uruguayan free kick.

The bigger problem, though, was that the hosts seemed incapable of making more of the space left to them out on the flanks as a result of the decidedly narrow Uruguayan formation.

There was one promising attempt to exploit it in the first half by lone striker Katlego Mphela but it ended with a terrible attempt at a cross while right back Siboniso Gaxa did much better on one of his all too rare ventures forward only to see Mphela head narrowly wide from just in front of the near post.

Predictably, playing through the heart of the Uruguayan team proved more difficult and Pienaar really managed no more than a handful of shots from middle to long range, almost all of which were blocked down well short of the target.

For a spell, though, the hosts did get the upper hand only for the game to take a decisive turn against them when Suarez was taken down by goalkeeper Khune.

South Africa appealed for offside – he had not been when the initial pass was played but would have been had Cavani got the touch he attempted which the match officials clearly felt he had not – but the flag stayed down, the goalkeeper was dismissed and Forlan confidently drove the resulting spot kick past substitute goalkeeper Moneeb Josephs who was brought on for Pienaar.

Parreira coolly described the referee afterwards as the worst he had seen, insisting that the penalty decision, which he saw as decisive, was a mistake and adding that he objected to the fact that the match official had left the pitch smiling.

“Now we have to beat France,” he acknowledged, “they are a very good team. It doesn’t matter that they have not played well in the qualifiers; they have great players again with the sort of experience that we might not have.

“Only by winning do we have a chance to go to the next round so we have to be more aggressive next time, of that there is no doubt.

But any team that gets four points can still qualify,” he continued, “and so we have a chance although the goal difference might be a problem and so from that point of view it’s disappointing, particularly the third one which came when the game was almost over.”