Spain suffered a stunning 1-0 defeat at the hands of minnows South Africa in a recent friendly match, which happened to take place in the same ground where Spain lift the 2010 FIFA World Cup. They came into the match as the current world champions, but this defeat has drained the positive mentality around the team ahead of the World Cup. Manager Vicente del Bosque said after the match that this was the worst performance he has seen from Spain.

The world number one team has almost been unplayable in the last five years ever since they won the Euro 2008, but South Africa managed to stop the opposition from creating chances. Spain also took the match lightly as it was a friendly encounter. South Africa allowed their opposition to have the ball where they could not hurt by scoring goals. When the opposition tried to advance, they followed up with a period of intense pressing.

"It could be. I think we can even say that we deserved the defeat. We started the game very well but little by little they started opening us up and we gave them time to play on the counter. We came out with good intentions, I can't complain about the attitude of my players. South Africa got better," said the Spain manager.

South Africa, meanwhile, were celebrating this extraordinary result, which also resulted in a congratulatory messages from the president.

After the match, del Bosque said that his team deserved to lose the match because they were outplayed by South Africa in almost all areas of the pitch. The former Real Madrid manager only signed a new contract a few days ago to extend his stay as the national team manager. Spain will go into the World Cup 2014 as one of the favourites to win the competition.