SOUTH AFRICA's soccer team caused quite a stir when they arrived for a workout at a posh Johannesburg health club this week.

As notebook clutching youngsters swarmed out of the walls, a bejewelled young white woman turned to her neighbour on the exercise cycles and asked who it was that everyone was making such a. fuss about. The answer surprised her.

"The soccer team?" she said. "I thought they were all black."

Soccer has been surprising everybody in South Africa this week. When Bafana Bafana - `the boys' - beat favourites Ghana 3-0 on Wednesday, thereby earning their place in today's final of the African Nations Cup, the mainly black crowd in Johannesburg's Soccer City were as amazed as they were delighted.

And having paid little attention to the team's progress through the early rounds of the competition, cricket and rugby loving white South Africans suddenly decided that soccer was no longer "a black game.

Tickets for today's final against Tunisia sold out in a few hours on Thursday morning as white suburbanites joined the long queues at computer booking offices: none of the previous games attracted a full house.

Contributing to all the interest is the belated realisation that the soccer team is much more representative of South Africa than its World Cup winning rugby squad or the cricket team which recently thrashed England.

While the rugby and cricket teams could only muster one coloured mixed race player - apiece, South Africa's first XI includes three whites and three coloureds. Its manager, Clive Barker, is a white South African, while the darlings of the black fans who flock to Soccer City on the edge of Soweto are "Shooooes" and "Feeesh" black midfielder John Moshoeu and white defender Mark Fish.

"It's good for solidarity and for national pride," said Brenda Goldblatt, a white barowner and television producer. "It's great that they're winning because then there would have been a terrible imbalance. Whites would say that the blacks couldn't deliver.

A fan of European soccer, she confesses that she paid little attention to the tournament until South Africa won their quarter final against Algeria 2-1, with Fish and Moshoeu scoring the goals.

Many white South African soccer fans would only watch English or European football on television, she said, either because they thought local standards were too low or because they were not interested in a "black game".

Paul Xaba, a black security guard in Johannesburg, said that he believed winning the biennial African Cup Nations would be as important to the new South Africa as last year's victory in the Rugby World Cup.

"When the Springboks won the World Cup it created some kind of unity in the country, regardless of race," he said. "People were not behind the Springboks, they were behind the national team. If the soccer team wins the final it will be the whole country that celebrates, whether they're white or black or coloured or Indian."

Many blacks also find supporting their national team something of a novelty. Like rugby and cricket, soccer was subjected to strict sporting sanctions during the apartheid years, but unlike the two white sports it never organised rebel tours to maintain standards. This is the first time that South Africa have qualified for the final stages of the African Nations Cup.

Interest has traditionally been much stronger in club football than in the national team. This year Orlando Pirates from Soweto became the first South African club to win the African club championships.

Unlike the Springboks, who were the underdogs in their final against New Zealand, Bafana - Bafana are heavy favourites to beat Tunisia in today's game.

Tunisia's coach, Henry Kasperczak, had little expectation of victory when he came to South Africa and picked 10 of his under 23 team with a view to gaining experience for next time around. Their 4-2 victory over Zambia in the semi finals was one of the tournament's major upsets.

South Africa go into the game stronger on paper and with the assured backing of a large and very vocal crowd. They also enjoy the advantage of having played all their games in Johannesburg, nearly 6,000 feet above sea level, while Tunisia have been confined to the coastal cities of Durban and Port Elizabeth.

Whatever today's result, the tournament is likely to have a happy ending for Mark Fish (21), Orlando Pirates' central defender, who is now much sought by the European club scouts attending the tournament. Moshoeu, the team's top scorer in the finals with four goals so far, would also be a major transfer target were it not for his age, 30.

So far the pair have upstaged South Africa's most expensive players, Phil Masinga and Lucas Radebe, both of whom play with Leeds United.

. Pele, three times WorldCup winning player and Brazil's minister for sport, said yesterday that Africa deserve to host the World Cup in 2006.

"Africa have made a lot of progress in the last few years. Cam croon did well in the 1990 World Cup, and, but for inexperience, could have reached the final. Then Nigeria did well in the 1994 event," said Pele.

. Nigeria have been suspended from the African Nations Cup till the turn of the century, the African football confederation (CAF) announced yesterday.

However there was no immediate confirmation that the ban would be upgraded worldwide as FIFA secretary general Sepp Blatter promised before the tournament. If it is, Nigeria will be barred from the 1998 World Cup.