In the years immediately following on South Africa's readmission to FIFA, the country achieved considerable success. Orlando Pirates won the African Champions' Cup in 1995 and a year later Bafana Bafana were crowned African champions after beating Tunisia 2-0 in the final at Soccer City.
Since then, footballing triumphs have been few and far between and even though the country on the southern tip of Africa hosted a highly successful FIFA World Cup™ in 2010, fans were looking for more.
Their long wait finally came to an end on the weekend as the reigning Premier League champions Mamelodi Sundowns brought a second continental star home after beating Cairo giants Zamalek 3-1 on aggregate.
Goals by Anthony Laffor and Tebogo Langerman, as well as an own goal from Islam Gamal gave the 'Brazilians' a convincing 3-0 victory in the home leg, and although Zamalek managed to restore some pride with a 1-0 win in the return leg, it was not enough to deny the South African side.
For the Sundowns players, the success not only brought huge financial rewards as club owner and mining magnate Patrice Motsepe announced after the win that the players could keep the USD 1.5 million prize money, they also secured a place for themselves in the spotlight as they qualified for the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2016 at the end of the year.
As the country's only other triumph in the competition came in 1995 – five years before the Club World Cup, Sundowns will be the first South African club to play on the global stage.
South Africans of all walks of life celebrated Sundowns' victory, with President Jacob Zuma being one of the first to congratulate the team. “It is indeed a glorious moment in South Africa and we congratulate Mamelodi Sundowns players, technical team and its entire management for representing us very well in this historically difficult continental championship and earned South Africa another star.
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