Substitute Daniel Alves broke South African hearts with an 88th-minute free-kick for Brazil that dumped the hosts out of the Confederations Cup with a narrow semi-final win in Johannesburg.

The Barcelona right-back, who only came on for the closing stages of the game, smashed in a powerful 18-yard set-piece from the left to stun the huge crowd at the Ellis Park Stadium after their side had performed impressively for most parts of the game.

However, they eventually fell short and will now meet Spain in the third-place play-off on Sunday, while the Selecao will face the United States in the final.

South Africa had the bulk of the play in the first half and looked as though they may cause a shock.

And after the break they continued to impress — Siphiwe Tshabalala coming closest to breaking the deadlock with a well-hit free-kick that needed to be palmed over by Julio Cesar.

With nine minutes remaining, Dunga looked to change things by introducing Daniel Alves for Andre Santos and for whatever reason he made the change, it seemed to work.

As time ran out, Aaron Mokoena brought down Ramires almost exactly on the 18-yard line and the Barcelona right-back smashed the resultant free-kick, which took a slight deflection off Steven Pienaar, into the top corner leaving the almost 50,000 Ellis Park crowd massively disappointed.