South Africa at the 2026 World Cup: the Cassiem brothers and a team that wins without money

In the opening match of the Nations Cup in Cape Town, on home soil and with a sold-out Hartleyvale behind them, Mustapha Cassiem limped off the pitch with an ankle injury. The best hockey player South Africa has ever produced would miss the rest of the tournament. What followed was the opposite of a collapse: without their star, South Africa knocked out defending champions New Zealand and reached the final, before France held firm in the closing act.

That is the tension this team carries into the 2026 World Cup. South Africa is, in everything, the team of the Cassiem brothers, captain Dayaan and his younger brother Mustapha, yet in June it proved it can win even when that axis falls away. That makes the Cassiems both indispensable and expendable, a paradox that colours the entire tournament. This dossier shows how a federation without money keeps dominating Africa and qualifying, why the Cassiems form the heart of South African play, and where the limit lies in the brutal pool with Australia, Spain and Ireland.

World ranking and qualification

South Africa starts the World Cup as by far the highest-ranked African nation on the FIH world rankings, but as the lowest-ranked team in its own pool. That split is the whole story: on the continent South Africa is a powerhouse, on the world stage an outsider that has never gone past the group phase.

The ticket to Belgium and the Netherlands was earned the way South Africa has known since readmission: by winning Africa. At the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 in Ismailia the team beat arch-rival Egypt 5-1 in the final and claimed the only direct African World Cup place. It was the ninth continental title, and confirmation that no other African nation comes close.

That continental dominance is also a trap. Because Egypt is the only serious opponent on the continent, South Africa misses the weekly grind against the world's best that the European nations get. The team qualifies with ease, and is then confronted at a World Cup with a level it can practise against nowhere at home. South Africa is moreover far from the world's top: where European nations simply drive across a border for a friendly, the federation must travel far and at great cost for an opponent of stature. The home Nations Cup of 2026 was precisely why it mattered so much, because it was the rare moment when the world's best came to Cape Town instead of the other way around.

South Africa was internationally banned from hockey in 1964 and only readmitted in 1993. A year earlier, in August 1992, five racially segregated hockey federations merged into the non-racial South African Hockey Association. The team's history therefore only really begins in 1994, and from day one it bears the stamp of the transition the whole country was going through.

All of South Africa's World Cup appearances

South Africa was absent only in 1998 and plays its eighth World Cup in 2026. The through-line is unforgiving: seven appearances, seven times failing to survive the group phase. The best results, a tenth place in 1994 and 2010, are now more than ten years old.

The major tournaments

South Africa has never won a world title, and will not win one in 2026 either. The trophy cabinet fills up elsewhere. The continent has belonged to the AmaStokke ever since readmission: every Africa Cup of Nations the team contested also went home with them. It is a hegemony that commands respect and at the same time says little about the world level, because the gap to the rest of Africa is simply too large. In 2022 South Africa also won the inaugural FIH Nations Cup in Potchefstroom, with a 4-3 in the final against Ireland, and in Paris 2024 it recorded its best Olympic result ever with a ninth place, including a 5-2 win over host nation France.

The purest high point came indoors, under a roof. At the 2025 Indoor World Cup in Poreč, Croatia South Africa took bronze by beating third-seeded Belgium 6-5, the country's first ever World Cup medal in any form of hockey. Mustapha Cassiem was named Player of the Tournament with a hat-trick in the bronze-medal match. It was a medal the team secured while, at the start of the journey, it was still uncertain whether the funding would come together, which made the achievement all the greater in South African eyes.

Recent editions

The last two World Cups sum up this team's range. In 2018 in Bhubaneswar it went wrong: heavy defeats to India and Belgium, a single point from a draw with Canada, and as the last of sixteen nations the worst World Cup in its history. In 2023, again in India, it looked more mature with an eleventh place, though a win over a top nation eluded it there too. That is the paradox South Africa has lived with for thirty years: good enough to take part, too light to break through, and always searching for that one upset to break the pattern.

Philosophy and approach

No one had predicted Devon van der Merwe as head coach this season. The Director of Hockey at Hilton College, a reflective coach with a background at the big KwaZulu-Natal hockey schools, was an assistant when it fell apart, and stepped up as interim head coach. What he brought is a people-centred approach focused on development and well-being, and an undiluted tactical identity. South Africa must play fast, aggressively and relentlessly: "They're not afraid to take chances. They're brave, and that's exactly what we want in South African hockey, a style that's fast, aggressive, and unrelenting", as he puts it himself. His three words for the run-up to the World Cup are just as sober: build depth, cohesion and belief, in a preparation window he honestly calls "far from ideal". That he lifted that team in a short time from a governance crisis to a home final gives him a credibility no tactical theory can replace.

The coaches before him: Ewing, Gie and the Ntuli affair

Van der Merwe is the fourth head coach in just under four years, and that is no detail. Garreth Ewing laid the defensive foundation between 2019 and the end of 2022 and professionalised the training approach. Under him South Africa recorded not only the upset against Germany (4-3) at the Tokyo Games, which earned it an invitation to a Pro League season, but also its first ever win over New Zealand in a major tournament and a first Commonwealth Games semi-final in twenty years. Ewing was a finalist for FIH coach of the year in 2022. Under Cheslyn Gie, who took over from university hockey in 2023, the philosophy swung towards attacking freedom and an extremely high tempo of decision-making: players were given the mandate to decide for themselves, even when that produced mistakes. The result was the Nations Cup title, an eleventh place at the 2023 World Cup and the Olympic record in Paris.

After that it got messy. In January 2025 the federation appointed Sihle Ntuli, the team's first black African head coach, but within a few months came a suspension and a disciplinary case that ended in his dismissal. Ntuli still disputes the outcome legally to this day and speaks of a process that was "unfair, unjust and procedurally flawed". Into that vacuum stepped Van der Merwe, and he stabilised things in a way few expected.

Paris, Africa and the one-goal year

The proof Van der Merwe delivered on the continent. At the AFCON 2025 the group match against Egypt still got out of hand, with a handful of cards and a chaotic 3-3, but in the final he placed the emphasis on discipline and cool-headed set-pieces, and Egypt was swept aside 5-1 after all. The prize for that, the World Cup ticket, was exactly the goal he had named in advance.

No Pro League, but the Nations Cup

South Africa does not play in the FIH Pro League; it lacks the money and the structural place. The path runs via the Nations Cup, and that is precisely where Van der Merwe did his best work. At the home Nations Cup of June 2026 in Cape Town South Africa reached the final via a semi-final that told you everything about this team. Against defending champions and world number eleven New Zealand, still unbeaten in the entire history of the Nations Cup and coached, of all people, by South African former international Greg Nicol, South Africa was missing both Mustapha Cassiem and Nic Spooner. Even so, a flowing run by Jamie Seale set up Kenton Melville for the 2-1, and when New Zealand equalised late, goalkeeper Cullin de Jager saved all four shoot-outs. The final against France went differently: Victor Charlet and Etienne Tynevez put the visitors 0-2 up within eight minutes, and although Sam Mvimbi pulled it back to 2-1 with a reverse from a sharp angle and South Africa forced three penalty corners and even an empty goal in the closing stages, France held on. Silver on home soil, and a team that stood there with its head held high. As a final warm-up, shortly before the World Cup South Africa still won a test series against Malaysia 3-0, with a 99th cap along the way for captain Dayaan Cassiem, who is thus nearing the hundred-caps milestone.

The staff under Van der Merwe

Alongside interim head coach Devon van der Merwe, the technical staff consists of team manager Martin van Staden and a broad group of assistants, among them Guy Elliott, Jacques le Roux, Kurt Cerfontein, Ashlin Freddy and Devin Stanton, with Daiyaan Solomons as physiotherapist and Myles Usher as strength-and-conditioning coach. SA Hockey president Deon Morgan and high-performance director Reggie Smith form the governance framework.

The World Cup squad

The final World Cup squad, announced on 17 July 2026, numbers twenty players. Compared with the Nations Cup group, veteran Nduduzo Lembethe, Niel Raath and Tevin Petersen dropped out, and Damian Knott, Trevor de Lora and Zenani Kraai came in. Most players are provincially based (Western Province, Southern Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal), with the Cassiem brothers as the best-known professionals in Europe. What stands out is how young the group is: alongside the experience of Spooner stands a whole generation born after 2000, a sign that the federation is deliberately building towards the cycle heading to 2029.

Six key players

Dayaan Cassiem is the talisman and captain. The AH&BC Amsterdam forward, with whom he won the Dutch national title in 2025, is the starting point of every South African counter: explosive sprints, and the ability to cut ball and all through the most compact defence. He has been captain since 2022 and led the country to Paris 2024, where he scored a late brace against host nation France.

Mustapha Cassiem is the younger brother and the most dynamic talent the country has ever produced. He is a versatile forward with fabulous technique in tight spaces, honed in indoor hockey where he was named Player of the Tournament at the 2025 World Cup. He is also the first penalty-corner taker, with a drag flick in which an extremely late wrist movement wrong-foots the goalkeeper. Indoors he is a total phenomenon, with well over a hundred international goals and, in early 2026, a third straight Nkosi Cup title as Player of the Tournament. His ankle injury from the Nations Cup briefly seemed to put his World Cup at risk, but he recovered in time and made the squad, a relief for the entire South African plan.

Cullin de Jager is the breakthrough of 2026. The goalkeeper, also a fixture between the posts for South Africa's indoor team, was named best goalkeeper of the tournament at the Nations Cup and saved all four New Zealand shoot-outs in the semi-final. A late bloomer who worked his way up from a small school via the provincial rankings, and who keeps his feet on the ground: if he does his job, he says, the team gets a chance.

Nicholas Spooner is the veteran and the engine in midfield. With 87 caps and a career that goes back to a previous hockey era, he is the distributor who feeds the Cassiems up front with delicate overheads, and one of the players who showed younger internationals the way to professional hockey.

Samkelo Mvimbi is the forward who strikes in the silence of a big moment. The Paris Olympian scored the consolation goal in the Nations Cup final with a fierce backhand from a sharp angle, precisely the kind of goal that makes a deficit tense again.

Kenton Melville is the face of the breakthrough. The young forward made his debut in the Nations Cup opener and grew within a week into the finisher on duty, with four goals in four matches, including the 2-1 in the semi-final against New Zealand. He embodies the other half of the Cassiem story: when the stars fall away, a new generation apparently stands ready to fill the void.

And that generation is broader than Melville alone. Ayakha Mthalane scored his first two international goals against the United States and forced himself into the picture, Carlon Mentoor is a menace to man-markers with unpredictable running, and Niel Raath worked his way up to international level through dominant displays at the domestic interprovincial tournament. It is exactly the flow-through that a federation without money needs: talent bubbling up from below.

Depth analysis by line

The Van der Merwe system

South Africa wants to make the game fast. The team presses high up front and defends compactly and with discipline behind that, looking for the moment of ball recovery to switch in an instant to a lightning transition. If that press is broken, the team folds back into a closed block rather than letting itself be pulled apart. Against a resolute block it can grow impatient, as Van der Merwe himself observed after the 4-0 against the United States: only when the opponent grew less fierce in the second half did the space open up in which the South African runners found their rhythm. It therefore pays to judge this team in the second and third quarters, when the intensity of the opening begins to wear the opponent down. And when it has to chase, the team does not hold back: in the Nations Cup final South Africa threw everything forward in the closing stages, with three penalty corners and a goalkeeper pulled from goal, in search of the equaliser.

The Cassiem axis

The heart of the attacking play is the understanding between the brothers. "We just know where to find each other", Mustapha says of Dayaan, and on the pitch it looks like a set choreography: after a turnover Mustapha seeks the axis upright, while Dayaan launches a diagonal run in behind the defence. The rest of the attack, the young finishers Kenton Melville and Carlon Mentoor, feeds off what those two break open.

The penalty corner as a weapon

On the penalty corner Mustapha Cassiem is the first option, with his late drag flick and a slip variant that nudges the ball just sideways at the stop to beat the first runner. Calvin Davis is the alternative, a taker of hard, low push-slaps who also finishes rebounds; it was he who, in the 3-3 against Ireland, scored the penalty corner that briefly put South Africa ahead.

And there lies the vulnerability at once. The same match showed that South Africa does not always see a lead over the line: with less than three minutes to go it was 3-2, and yet it became 3-3. "As fast as we scored, we also conceded", admitted Van der Merwe, who pointed his team to closing out matches and defending penalty corners. Add to that the discipline, which wobbled again in the Nations Cup final with cards at the wrong moment, and the heavy dependence on the Cassiem brothers, and the realistic picture emerges. Against the drag-flick arsenals of Australia and Spain that can go badly: the 12-0 that Australia inflicted on South Africa in 2010, still the biggest win ever at a men's World Cup, is the scar that explains why this team stays humble.

Australia: the favourite that dominates the pool

The Kookaburras, world number three and three-time world champions, are the clear pool winners in waiting. Under coach Mark Hager, Australia is building a new generation around a deep arsenal of drag flickers, with a playing intensity South Africa meets nowhere at home. For the team this is the match where the structural gap is widest, and where the scar of the 12-0 from 2010 inevitably weighs in. Realistically this fixture is not about the win but about staying dignified and limiting the damage.

Spain: dangerous and used to the top

The Red Sticks, seeded via the Pro League, are the team that makes the difference between advancing and going out. Spain beat Australia this year and pushed Belgium to the limit, and is exactly the kind of opponent, technical and structured, that South Africa struggles with. A point or more against Spain would tilt the AmaStokke's tournament; losing means almost certainly another early exit.

Ireland: the most winnable clash

Ireland, world number nine, is closest to South Africa in level, as the 3-3 at the Nations Cup showed. This is the match where South Africa can realistically pull off an upset and turn its chances of advancing. But Ireland did not climb to ninth for nothing: in Cape Town the equaliser came only in the closing minutes, a reminder of the Irish fight that South Africa must this time actually shut down.

Key players per rival

• Australia: Tom Craig, Jacob Anderson and Daniel Beale form the attacking axis; watch the rotating drag flickers in the Australian set-piece.
• Spain: veteran Marc Recasens, playmaker Joan Tarres and goalkeeper Luis Calzado carry the Spanish game.
• Ireland: captain Kyle Marshall, veteran Lee Cole and forward Daragh Walsh, who scored against South Africa at the Nations Cup.

This team's mentality is captured in a sentence from Dayaan Cassiem, spoken when it was not even certain the team could afford the Indoor World Cup: "At the beginning of the tour, we weren't sure about funding, and we said it doesn't matter about money or anything, we're going to make the country proud". Playing as if the money does not matter, precisely because it painfully does, that is the South African keynote.

That resilience is no abstraction. It has the name Cullin de Jager, who in a full Hartleyvale saved all four New Zealand penalties and carried his team to the final. It has the shape of a comeback from 0-2 against France that tipped the stadium. And it has a name the team quietly honoured ahead of the test series against the Netherlands: Cassa Cassiem, the father of Dayaan and Mustapha, "a gentle giant" who died in December 2025 and whose legacy lives on in his sons. Mustapha sums up the drive in a nutshell: "I come from a background where you could either go down the right path or the wrong path". Hockey was the right turn, and the gratitude for that is palpable in everything this team does.

Much of that toughness comes from an unexpected direction: the indoor game. It is in indoor hockey, with its small margins and endless shoot-outs, that the Cassiems and De Jager sharpened their composure, and it is no coincidence that it was that team which took the country's first World Cup medal. De Jager himself is the proof of it, a goalkeeper from a small school who went unnoticed anywhere and worked his way up via the provincial rankings to best goalkeeper of an international tournament. This is a team used to starting with less and delivering anyway, and that habituation may well be its greatest weapon at a World Cup.

Hockey in South Africa is historically a sport of white private schools, and the unification of the federation in 1992 made transformation an immediately living, politically charged theme. The Cassiem brothers embody what that can produce: raised in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats, sons of a father who was never allowed to play for his country under apartheid, now the face of the national team. Three generations of hockey, from a refused father to two sons who wear the captain's armband and the star role. That story is exceptional precisely because it is so rare: the bulk of the internationals still come from the network of traditional hockey schools, and the road from the Cape Flats to the national team remains the exception rather than the rule.

But the structure in which that happens is creaking. South Africa is a hockey nation without money. For the 2026 World Cup the federation launched public crowdfunding campaigns to get the men and women to Europe at all, with the simple message that the team had done the hard work and now needed the country behind it. It is not an isolated case. For the 2025 Junior World Cup every U21 player had to chip in 40,000 rand out of their own pocket, a shortfall discussed all the way up in parliament. Former head coach Garreth Ewing summed it up years earlier: with no main sponsor, "our players constantly fundraising or having to pay out of their own pockets". And even the overarching SASCOC is itself waiting on government money that just never comes. Only just before the World Cup did the tide turn: after public outcry the Minister of Sport approved R3 million in emergency support so both teams could travel fully funded, expressly as a one-off intervention. Tellingly, that same department had shortly before spent around R31 million on the delegation surrounding football team Bafana Bafana.

The direct consequence is a persistent talent drain. A lack of money pushes young talent towards cricket and rugby, the country's fully professionalised sports. Junior international Jaydon Brooker, top scorer at the Junior Africa Cup, chose a cricket career, in the footsteps of hockey legend-turned-cricketer Jonty Rhodes. Those who do stay with hockey sooner or later seek the professional route to Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands; the Cassiems do so at AH&BC Amsterdam. That the Nations Cup opener coincided with the World Cup start of rich football little brother Bafana Bafana, and Hartleyvale sold out anyway, says something about how deep the passion runs despite everything.

Wavre as base

South Africa plays its pool in the brand-new Belfius Hockey Arena in Wavre, on Belgian soil. The World Cup runs from 15 to 30 August 2026, split across Wavre and the Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen. For South Africa, a draw in Wavre means it stands immediately against the world's best, without the soft landing of a pool with a weaker sibling. It is a familiar role: as the lowest-ranked team, the team travels with nothing to lose and everything to prove, exactly the mentality in which this team feels most at home.

Pool C and the tournament format

The draw was as tough as it could possibly have fallen: Australia, Spain, Ireland and South Africa in a pool where South Africa is the lowest-ranked. Sixteen nations are split across four pools of four; the top two per pool advance to the intermediate round, after which two pools of four produce the semi-finalists.

Scenario analysis: the road to the final

The schedule is now known: South Africa opens on 16 August against Spain, meets Ireland on 18 August and closes against Australia on 20 August. Realistically the whole tournament for South Africa comes down to second place. Australia is the near-certain group winner, so the second qualifying spot becomes a fight with Spain and Ireland. Ireland is the most winnable scalp, given the 3-3 in Cape Town. If South Africa takes that match and steals a point or a win against Spain, then for the first time in history a place beyond the group phase opens up. And every goal counts here: on equal points, goal difference decides second place, and a heavy defeat to Australia could cost South Africa dearly exactly there. If it loses to both Spain and Ireland, then another early exit looms, and on an unlucky day against Australia even a painful hiding.

1. Mustapha Cassiem, back from the brink. His ankle injury from the Nations Cup seemed set to spoil things, but he made the World Cup squad. Watch whether he is immediately back at his old, disruptive level; with a fit Mustapha, South Africa is an outsider with teeth.

2. The Cassiem connection in transition. Follow the axis the moment South Africa wins the ball: Mustapha seeks space upright, Dayaan sprints diagonally in behind the defence. The lightning pass from one into the run of the other is this team's trademark.

3. Mustapha's late drag flick. On the penalty corner, watch his wrist movement; it comes so late that the goalkeeper chooses too early. And watch the stopper: if he nudges the ball subtly sideways, the slip variant is coming.

4. Cullin de Jager in shoot-outs. If it comes down to penalties, South Africa has the edge. De Jager is also the country's indoor goalkeeper and works shoot-outs week in, week out; against New Zealand he saved all four.

5. Kenton Melville in front of goal. The young finisher scored four goals in four matches at the Nations Cup when the stars fell away. Watch his positioning right in front of the goalkeeper.

6. Sam Mvimbi's backhand. His consolation goal in the final came via a fierce reverse from an impossible angle. Mvimbi scores the kind of goal that reopens a dead match.

7. The second and third quarters. South Africa wears the opponent down with intensity and then strikes. Anyone level early on must be wary around half-time.

8. The closing stages, for the wrong reason. Keep an eye on South Africa when it holds a lead. The team gave away a late lead more than once at the Nations Cup; closing out matches and defending penalty corners is the exposed nerve.

9. The first quarter as an energy test. South Africa opens fiercely and tries to make the opponent run early. Anyone who wants to know how much the team has in the tank watches the intensity of the first fifteen minutes; if it drops too fast, it becomes a long afternoon.

10. Dayaan Cassiem's solo. Watch for the moments when the captain gets the ball on his stick with space in front of him. His acceleration and dribble through a compact defence are often the starting signal for South Africa's most dangerous moment of the match.

Three scenarios lie open in Wavre. In the finest, South Africa survives the group phase for the first time in history, carried by a fit Mustapha, De Jager's saves and an Irish scalp. In the likely one it ends as third in the pool, honourable and with flashes, but just short against Spain and Ireland. In the painful one it turns into a hiding against Australia that reopens the old wound of 2010. By the time of the men's final on Sunday 30 August in Wavre, South Africa will have long been watching from the sidelines.

But the yardstick for this team lies not only in the result. A federation that has to crowdfund its players to travel, and that sees its talent leak away to cricket and rugby, still stands here with the African crown, an Indoor World Cup medal and home silver in its pocket. No other African nation comes close, and few countries in the world achieve so much with so little. Whether the Cassiems really carry South Africa is there to be seen in Wavre: Mustapha has recovered from his ankle and is simply selected, so the excuse of a missing star is gone. But the summer of Cape Town also proved the opposite of dependence, namely that this team, when it must, can fight its way to a final even without its stars. Therein lies the true legacy of a father who was never allowed to play: a team that keeps showing up, however lopsided the odds, and that walks off the pitch with more pride than its place on the ranking would suggest.

Official sources

• International Hockey Federation (FIH) - rankings, World Cup 2026, Nations Cup.
• African Hockey Federation - AFCON, qualification, Nations Cup.
• South African Hockey Association - squad, staff, match reports.
• Olympics.com - World Cup records and Paris 2024.
• the official World Cup schedule.

South African media

• Daily Maverick - quality press and analysis.
• Times LIVE - match reports.
• Eyewitness News - news and match reports.
• SABC Sport - national broadcaster.
• The Athlete - Cassiem profiles.
• News24 - sports news.