Steven Pienaar's Call for Bafana Bafana to Make Breaking Runs

Steven Pienaar has never been shy about saying what he sees. On Thursday night, watching from afar as Bafana Bafana clawed their way to a 1-1 draw with Czechia in Atlanta, the former South Africa star had one clear message for the current generation: start running in behind.

South Africa rescued their first point of the 2026 FIFA World Cup thanks to an 83rd-minute Teboho Mokoena penalty, finishing the game with a surge that briefly hinted at a famous comeback win. The point keeps them alive in Group A, but only just. They sit bottom of the standings heading into a decisive clash with South Korea in Guadalupe next Wednesday – a 3 a.m. kick-off for fans back home.

For Pienaar, the late rally did not erase what he had seen for most of the contest.

“Why is there no running of the ball from Bafana? They all want the ball to feet, no deep runs,” he posted on X during the match, cutting straight to a tactical flaw that has dogged South African football for years: pretty patterns, not enough penetration.

The equaliser and late pressure did not soften his stance. After the final whistle, he returned to the platform with a mixture of praise and insistence.

“Well done boys. Now, on to the next. Please, next, we game we need breaking runs – please boys,” he wrote, doubling down on his demand for movement beyond the back line.

Pienaar knows this stage. The former Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland, Borussia Dortmund and Ajax playmaker was a central figure in Bafana’s 2010 World Cup campaign on home soil. That side also reached their final group match with one point from two games. They famously beat France 2-1 in Bloemfontein, but still went out on goal difference.

Fourteen years later, the echoes are hard to ignore. Once again, South Africa arrive at their last group fixture with a single point and everything on the line. The difference this time is the shape of the tournament. With the World Cup expanded and third place potentially enough to reach the round of 32, Bafana’s hopes are not quite as fragile as they were in 2010.

The group picture is clear and unforgiving. Mexico sit top with six points. South Korea have three. Czechia and South Africa are locked on one point each, with the Europeans ahead on goal difference. For Bafana, the equation against the Koreans is simple: they must finally turn promise into a complete performance.

This is South Africa’s fourth appearance at a World Cup. They have never reached the knockout rounds. The squad also lacks the glamour of an English Premier League headliner. After Lyle Foster’s relegation with Burnley, there is no current Premier League player in Hugo Broos’s ranks.

Yet the story of South African football is no longer written only in European ink. At club level, the domestic game is thriving. Mamelodi Sundowns have reasserted themselves as a continental force, lifting a second CAF Champions League title in the 2025-26 season. Mokoena, the man who kept Bafana alive in Atlanta, also delivered on the biggest African stage, scoring the decisive goal in the second leg of the final against AS FAR in Rabat.

That same composure from the spot, that same sense of timing, is what South Africa now need across the pitch. Pienaar’s plea for “breaking runs” is more than a social media gripe; it is a blueprint. Without runners stretching defences, Mokoena’s influence, the creativity in midfield, and the energy out wide all get smothered.

Against South Korea, there will be no hiding place. One more cautious, to-feet performance, and another Bafana generation will watch the knockout rounds from home. One brave night of vertical runs and risk-taking, and they might finally step through a door that has stayed shut for every World Cup they have ever played.