South Africa and Canada Qualify as Sunday's Games Begin: Bafana Bafana's Historic First Knockout Stage

[Peter]

Sunday June 28 begins the final round of group stage games with Canada hosting South Africa at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in the first match of the day. South Africa qualified for the World Cup knockout stage for the first time in their history on Saturday when Thapelo Maseko's 63rd-minute goal against Canada lifted them above South Korea and into the automatic qualification places as group runners-up. Canada secured top spot in their group. The South African achievement is significant: Bafana Bafana were hosted by FIFA as a wildcard team in 2010 in their own country and could not progress, making Saturday's result the first time they have genuinely earned knockout stage progression.

Canada have been quietly impressive in this tournament. Playing on home soil at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles with an enormous Canadian diaspora crowd, they have combined organisation with individual quality from players including Tajon Buchanan and Jonathan David. The round of 32 game between them and South Africa on Sunday is technically an end-of-group game rather than a knockout but carries the emotional weight of two nations both experiencing new territory at the tournament: Canada as hosts exceeding group stage expectations and South Africa making history.

The timing of South Korea's exit, confirmed by the same South Africa result that put Bafana through, adds another layer to the story. South Korea, multiple-time knockout stage qualifiers and the team that reached the semi-finals in 2002 as co-hosts, go home in the group stage in a tournament where the expanded format was supposed to make qualification easier. Hugo Broos's South Africa have done what Son Heung-min and company could not.

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