Bafana Bafana were kept on the back foot early on by a Mexico side who dominated possession, but they came out reinvigorated in the second half and led in the 55th minute through Siphiwe Tshabalala's spectacular goal which turned the vuvuzela horn volume up.

They were pegged back by Rafael Marquez's cool strike with 11 minutes to go but Parreira on the whole felt a point kept his side in the hunt to progress.

"The opening game is always a lot of pressure and today was no different," the Brazilian said.

"Most of our team are a home-based team, players who are not used to this big environment and we tried hard to adapt to this ambience but after 15 minutes we started playing our game, putting the ball on the ground.

"We knew this Mexico team was the most daring in the World Cup, they are full of quality, In the second half we made the game more balanced and had chances to even have won it.

"I believe that the ice has been broken. The result was not the one we wanted but it will keep us alive until the last game in the group."

South Africa survived a first-half scare when a Carlos Vela goal was rightly disallowed for offside, but the hosts were in dreamland as Teko Modise's through-ball stretched the home defence and Tshabalala raced clear and fired an angled left-footed shot across the helpless Oscar Perez and into the top corner.

Modise had a great chance to double Bafana Bafana's lead but his half-volley in the 66th minute drifted wide after a Katlego Mphela shot deflected into his path.

Mexico grabbed the equaliser their all-round play deserved in the 79th minute when Marquez applied a calm finish after Andres Guardado's exquisite cross from the left picked him out in the box.

Mphela came agonisingly close to winning it for South Africa but his weak effort hit the base of Perez's right-hand post after a long ball over the top had played him in.

Mexico coach Javier Aguirre agreed with Parreira that a draw was a fair outcome from an enthralling game, but believes his side must now beat France in their second group game after a string of first-half openings went begging.

The former Atletico Madrid boss said: "We missed a lot of chances and we lost our shape when they got the goal, we became a little chaotic.

"Fortunately we equalised, we could have won, we could have lost. Both teams are going away with a bitter taste but that's how it is - now we are forced to beat France."