South Africa

The Story

South Africa returns to a World Cup for the first time in 16 years — and the first since they hosted the 2010 tournament, which is still, for a generation of Americans who got into soccer that summer, the World Cup. Vuvuzelas. Waka Waka. Tshabalala's opener. Ghana's agony. The African continent hosting football's biggest event for the first and still only time.

The man who took them back is Hugo Broos, the 73-year-old Belgian coach who has quietly become one of the best CAF managers of the last decade. He led Cameroon to the AFCON title in 2017, took the South Africa job in 2021, got them to fourth at the 2023 AFCON (their best finish in 23 years), and spent the 2024-25 qualifying campaign beating Nigeria to the top of Group C on the final matchday. He's already announced this is his last job in football. He wants to leave with something memorable.

Group A is Mexico (hosts, opening match, Estadio Azteca), South Korea (dangerous, organized, Son Heung-min-led), and Czechia (the tournament's dark horse UEFA side). The draw is actually kind. Beat Czechia, steal a point off Korea, and survive Mexico in the opener, and you're through to the knockouts. Lyle Foster has to score. Ronwen Williams has to save penalties (he's good at that). And the amapiano has to be loud enough to be heard in Pretoria. All three of those are reasonable asks.

3 Players to Know

Lyle Foster

The 25-year-old Burnley striker with 10 international goals and the weight of a nation's front line on him. Grew up in Soweto, came through Orlando Pirates' academy, went to Monaco at 18, bounced through Portugal and Belgium, found a home at Burnley in the Premier League. He's spoken publicly about the mental-health break he took in 2023, came back stronger, and is now the best South African striker since Benni McCarthy. Bafana goes exactly as far as Foster's finishing boots carry them.

Ronwen Williams

The captain, the goalkeeper, 33 years old, and the reason South Africa have a defense. Saved three penalties in the 2023 AFCON quarterfinal shootout against Cape Verde — a performance that still plays on loop in South African football clubs. Plays at Mamelodi Sundowns in the domestic league, which is rare for a starting World Cup keeper but tells you something about the quality of the SA top flight. Coach Hugo Broos calls him the best goalkeeper in Africa, and he's not wrong.

Themba Zwane

The 36-year-old attacking midfielder from Mamelodi Sundowns — the spiritual heir to the old Bafana No. 10s, never left South Africa to play abroad, became a legend anyway. This is his first and only World Cup. Broos rebuilt the team around his passing range and his set-piece delivery. The story of him finally getting a World Cup after a 15-year international career is the kind of story the entire country will be pulling for, and Mexico's center-backs should be paying close attention to his corners.

The Food

Signature Dish

Bobotie is the national dish nobody outside South Africa knows about — spiced minced beef or lamb baked with a raisin-studded curry base and topped with a golden egg-and-milk custard, served with yellow rice and chutney. The Cape Malay heritage shows in the turmeric and cinnamon. Then there's the braai — South African barbecue, which is a verb, a noun, and a religion — boerewors sausage coiled in a spiral, lamb chops, pap (maize porridge) and chakalaka (a spicy vegetable relish) on the side. Bunny chow — a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with curry — is the Durban street-food classic. Biltong is the jerky. Rooibos is the tea. Castle Lager is the beer. You will be fed well.

Where to Eat in DFW

Nando's Peri-Peri opened its first Texas location in Addison in December 2023 — the Portuguese-South African chicken chain that every South African expat in DFW has been waiting for. It's not bobotie and it's not a proper braai, but the peri-peri marinade is right, the medium-hot is actually medium-hot, and the chicken is exactly what it should be. For biltong and boerewors and actual groceries to take home, Quick Shop in Dallas is the South African-British-Kenyan store that stocks everything Afrikaans. Anton's African Cuisine in Roanoke serves biltong on the menu and is worth the drive if you're already north.

Fan Culture

South African support is the most joyful traveling crowd in the sport. The vuvuzela — the three-foot-long plastic horn that made 2010 sound like a swarm of angry bees on live television — is still legal, still loud, and absolutely coming to North America in June. Expect yellow shirts, green flags, the diski dance, and amapiano playing out of every concourse speaker for 90 minutes before kickoff. Amapiano is THE global music export out of SA right now — it's on every TikTok on earth, and the Bafana support will turn a stadium into a Johannesburg rooftop party inside 20 minutes. Sit near them and you're dancing. You're drinking a Castle. You're learning to say "Bafana Bafana" with the right cadence. You're having a better time than you expected.