Soccer: South Africa out of World Cup

South Africa, hosts of the 2010 soccer World Cup, have kissed goodbye to the 2006 finals in Germany.

The South Africans were scuppered by a 3-1 defeat in Burkina Faso, coupled with Ghana's victory 2-0 over Uganda yesterday.

South African papers universally panned the performance of their national team, describing their performance as "shambolic" and the team as "outplayed, outfought and outdone".

Several newspapers questioned the future of coach Stuart Baxter, accusing him of playing with consistently underperforming players at the expense of new rising stars.