Bafana technical team takes shape — Tovey

Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter is expected to finalise his technical team before the senior national team host Libya in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier at home in September.

Baxter has been without fulltime assistant coaches since he took over from Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba in May 2017. Safa technical director Neil Tovey said Baxter is expected to finalise the team by September.

“He is busy with that issue of a technical team now. As you know there was talk around the Pirates assistant coach Rhulani Mokwena‚” Tovey said.

“We are looking at coaches who have potential to be part of our structures. As an association we will soon have a complete structure with regard to our coaching structures.

“There are going to be matches in a few months, hopefully by then he [Baxter] would have finalised his technical team. But it is his decision who he wants to work with.”

Tovey said the appointment of Baxter’s assistants will have an impact on the Under-20 and Under-23 technical teams.

“That forms part of the thinking around Molefi Ntseki and Thabo Senong‚” he said.

“We are discussing all those aspects with Stuart because invariably the U-23 coach will come in as the assistant of the senior national team‚” he said‚ adding that the recent Bafana Four Nations squad included U23 players who will play in the Olympic qualifiers.

“In Baxter’s recent call-ups‚ he incorporated a lot of players who are U-23 and U-20 to give them experience‚” Tovey said.

“They will form an integral part of the programme for the Olympics. More important for us is that the U-20s for the Olympics will be 22 when the Games arrive. We want the U20s and U-17s to produce players for the Olympics.

“From 2020 the Caf Youth Cup of Nations will be for U-18s and we have to change our thinking around that,” Tovey said.