Sunday, 25th March 2007 at 4:12 pm

Good start for Parreira

It wasn’t the glamorous location you’d imagine a multi-million dollar football signing to be making the debut for his new team in - a dusty field in Chad, in a stadium that could be kindly dubbed rustic. But Carlos Alberto Parreira will remember the ground with some fondness: his first proper game in charge was always a potential banana skin, but a solid performance gave Bafana Bafana a win in Chad, and Parreira a one-from-one record.

2010 forms the crux of Parreira’s South African assignment, but getting to the Africa Cup of Nations in 2008 is the most immediate task at hand, and an away win in Africa - even against a lesser side like Chad - is never a simple task. And from there, parreira has the skeleton of a winning squad, and one he’ll look to mould further with a view to the World Cup.

Doing that is always easier with a winning team, and three points on the road means that Parreira has a little more flexibility going forward, having got off to a good start in South Africa. The Brazilian (who now has his work permit…) has been scouting local football exhaustively, and while he’s made it clear that he’s not going to over-experiment, he will play around with a couple of new faces from the local league in due course. Always easier to do when you’re winning, of course - and so far, so good.