COACH Carlos Alberto Parreira has warned his South Africa side of the threat posed by what he describes as ‘the most daring team’ at the World Cup ahead of their showdown with Mexico at Soccer City today.

The two countries kick off the 19th edition of the finals and first ever on the African continent in Johannesburg this afternoon with plenty of expectation on the host nation.

Never in the history of the World Cup has a home team failed to qualify for the second round, with South Africa, the second lowest ranked nation in 2010 behind North Korea, desperate to maintain that trend.

Although confident, Brazilian coach Parreira expects a difficult opening against Javier Aguirre’s men in front of an expected 85,000 crowd.

“As much as the pressure is big, it’s a World Cup game, it’s sort of a war,” he said.

“Opening games are always difficult, there is lots of pressure, the whole country is involved and you are playing under the eyes of the world.”

But the 1994 World Cup-winning coach – he led Brazil to glory that year – is not afraid of the task that awaits his side on matchday one.

He continued: “We respect them, but we are not afraid. We want to make this country proud and we are going to give hell to any team we play.”

After facing the Mexicans, the hosts must still battle former world champions Uruguay and France in their bid to qualify from Group A.

On Wednesday half a million South Africans took to the streets in all major centres blowing vuvuzelas, sounding their car horns and showing their support for the nation.

It was the sort of party associated with winning a tournament rather than kicking one off and Parreira said: “Yes, we were expecting to have two days of calmness and all focus on the game. But also, I can understand.

“In this country football has been sleeping for many years, then suddenly there was a ray of hope with a good performance of the team, the World Cup coming here for the first time and we had to understand the feelings of the people.

“It’s important that this will not contaminate us, in a good sense that is, because we like what we saw. You have to like this kind of support.”