{"id":353571,"date":"2026-06-20T04:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=353571"},"modified":"2026-06-20T04:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:12:39","slug":"south-africa-stays-alive-with-draw-vs-czech-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/20\/south-africa-stays-alive-with-draw-vs-czech-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa stays alive with draw vs Czech Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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South Africa\u2019s Teboho Mokoena celebrates a goal through the World Cup Group A soccer match between Czechia and South Africa in Atlanta, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Stew Milne)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

ATLANTA\u2014 Teboho Mokoena began the sport with tears in his eyes and finished it with a smile on his face after converting a second-half penalty in South Africa\u2019s 1-1 draw with the Czech Republic on Thursday on the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Thapelo Maseko\u2019s long range shot late within the match caught the hand of Czech opponent Pavel Sulc in the world.<\/p>\n

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Mokoena, who was shown on camera with tears rolling down his cheeks through the pre-game national anthem, stepped as much as the penalty spot and sent his shot low past Czech Republic goalkeeper Matej Kovar within the 83rd minute.<\/p>\n

The South Africa midfielder said he was overwhelmed before kick off, excited about his late grandfather.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do know, wherever he’s, he could be happy with me,\u201d Mokoena said. \u201cI just felt his presence in that moment. I assumed if he was here, he could be happy with me because I do know he believed in me when no one believed in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michal Sadilek had given the Czechs the lead within the sixth minute at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Alexandr Sojka played in Sadilek and he slid a shot past goalkeeper Ronwen Williams.<\/p>\n

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Each teams lost their opening matches, and each knew one other setback would seriously hinder their possibilities of reaching the round of 32.<\/p>\n

South Africa faced some strong criticism following its 2-0 loss to World Cup co-host Mexico, which raised the prospect of the country extending its run of never having advanced to the knockout phase of a World Cup \u2014 at the same time as host in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we go on like that and if we will make one other performance like today I feel we’ve got a probability to go within the second round,\u201d South Africa coach Hugo Broos said.<\/p>\n

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South Africa will next face South Korea on Wednesday in Group A, but can be without Mokoena, who’s suspended after picking up his second yellow card of the tournament.<\/p>\n

The Czechs lost to South Korea 2-1 of their opening match and can likely have to beat Mexico of their final game on Wednesday to advance.<\/p>\n

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South Africa\u2019s Teboho Mokoena celebrates a goal through the World Cup Group A soccer match between Czechia and South Africa in Atlanta, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Stew Milne) ATLANTA\u2014 Teboho Mokoena began the sport with tears in his eyes and finished it with a smile on his face after converting a second-half penalty in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20686],"tags":[5861,2889,3879,2873,16033,3685,2340],"class_list":["post-353571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-africa","tag-alive","tag-czech","tag-draw","tag-republic","tag-south","tag-stays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353574,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353571\/revisions\/353574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}