This Is A Local Team...For Local People

South Africa's Brazilian coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira has come out and said that the South Africa World Cup squad will be largely made up of locally based players.

He is quoted as saying:

“The team that will play in the World Cup will be made up by 65-70 per cent of locally-based players. This is largely because the overseas-based players are not regulars in their teams. But the door will always be open until the final camp,”

So, it's not because there really aren't very many South African players playing outside of the country, then, Carlos?

And that number of 30-35% of overseas based players? This couldn't possibly be approximately the percentage of players that are actually playing abroad, could it?

A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that 9 of the current 24 man South African squad play outside the country. A percentage of 37.5%.

So I guess what Parreira is actually saying is this:

"we'll play all the players we can from outside of the country. Unfortunately, because this is only 35% of the total number required for the squad, we'll be forced to use local players. Sorry about that."