By Chris Wright
Bringing back horrible memories of those f**king vuvuzelas making the entire 2010 tournament sound like a colony of wasps had set up base camp inside your cranium, here’s Siphiwe Tshabalala’s cracking opening goal against Mexico at Bafana Bafana’s home World Cup – an emphatic strike in the purest sense of the word, followed by that brilliant little group celebration…
A year or so after the World Cup, Tshabalala was linked with a move to Nottingham Forest following a trial at the City Ground.
However, seeing as though the club shop was and is still recovering from the great Van Hooijdonk-induced vowel drought of ’98, the transfer was nixed on safety grounds.
More in the series…
#1 – Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina) vs Mexico, 2006
#2 – Saeed Al-Owairan (Saudi Arabia) vs Belgium, 1994
#3 – Giovanni Van Bronckhorst (Holland) vs Uruguay, 2010
#4 – Pierre Njanka-Beyaka, (Cameroon) vs Austria, 1998
#5 – Nelinho (Brazil) vs Italy, 1978
#6 – David Platt (England) vs Belgium, 1990
#7 – Alessandro Del Piero (Italy) vs Germany, 2006
#8 – Javier Zanetti (Argentina) vs England, 1998
#9 – Manuel Negrete (Mexico) vs Bulgaria, 1986
#10 – Emmanuel Sanon (Haiti) vs Italy, 1974
#11 – Josimar (Brazil) vs Northern Ireland, 1986
#12 – Maicon (Brazil) vs North Korea, 2010
#13 – Dennis Bergkamp (Holland) vs Argentina, 1998
#14 – Dragan Stojkovic (Yugoslavia) vs Spain, 1990
#15 – Chiqui Arce (Paraguay) vs South Africa, 2002
#16 – Esteban Cambiasso (Argentina) vs Serbia & Montenegro, 2006
#17 – Gheorghe Hagi (Romania) vs Colombia, 1994
#18 – Hans Krankl (Austria) vs West Germany, 1978
#19 – Sunday Oliseh (Nigeria) vs Spain, 1998
#20 – Dinko Dermendjiev (Bulgaria) vs Peru, 1970