Perreira was in the Mother City to watch South Africa's Under-20 team in action against Nigeria at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday evening. His surprise visit followed Amajita's (the South Africa Under-20 team) stunning 3-2 victory over Brazil in the opening match of the Four Nation invitational tournament, which got under way at Newlands Rugby Stadium last Thursday. As a result of this display, the South African Football Association (Safa) felt it was worthwhile for Perreira to run the ruler over the youngsters. Perreira has just returned from Brazil, where he held a training camp for Bafana Bafana. He said that the national team have now adopted a playing style but his big concern is the physical fitness of the players.
The one thing that we achieved at the training camp in Brazil was to identify a style of playing for the national team," said Perreira. "The side now have a shape and the players know what is required from them.
"However, the physical fitness should be much higher than where it is now. The defence is okay and the team is organised. The players can move with ease from defence to attack. "They will also have to learn very quickly to improve the quality of possession and this is a problem I've noticed in local football. "About 13 or so of the players who were in Brazil should make the final World Cup squad and by now they have a feeling about the way we want to play. "We just have to make sure they express themselves and grow as a team. They must learn to open space and create scoring chances. "Right now the bottle is half full because we are halfway ready towards being fully prepared for the World Cup. I say half full instead of half empty because I am optimistic about the way we are preparing for the World Cup. "The last camp will be the one that we will have in Johannesburg starting on May 5.
