Mashaba warns of Bafana complacency
EPHRAIM ‘SHAKES’ MASHABA couldn’t help it but pick up a familiar type of an attitude from Bafana Bafana players during their 2-1 defeat to Cape Verde in a 2018 World Cup qualifier this past week.
The senior national side simply allowed their egos to let them underestimate their opponents who, according to the Caf rankings, are 17 places below them.
The Blue Sharks, 30th on the Continental rankings as compared to Bafana’s 13th spot, picked up on that egocentric energy from their opponents and ran them ragged to produce their first win of Group D in their last three outings.
The same thing happen back in 2013 in Bafana’s road to the World Cup in Brazil, where the senior national side, under then-coach Gordon Igesund, were competing in a group where they were counted as favourites to go through into the play-off round.
However, early 1-1 draws with both Ethiopia and Botswana saw them miss out on that chance with a mere two points’ gap, following a 2-1 defeat against Ethiopia who finished top of that pool in their last game of the group fixtures.
Mashaba stressed that South Africa cannot continue with this attitude of underestimating lowly-ranked sides when it comes to crucial clashes such as the World Cup qualifiers, as failure to do so might see them miss out on a chance of qualifying for the Russia edition as well.
The last time the senior national side qualified for this global showpiece was back in 2002, the Korea-Japan edition, where Carlos Queiroz was still in charge of the national side.
“This is typical of South African thinking,” Mashaba said. “They only talk about Nigeria and Cameroon (as some of the top sides to play against in a match-up). And once you start mentioning countries like Burkina Faso, they say to you ‘Who is Burkina Faso?’ I don’t know why we always do that. We need to stop doing that, really.
“If you look at that match against Cape Verde,” Mashaba added. “We should have scored at least three of four goals in the first 25 minutes. However, it was quite unfortunate that we didn’t and they gradually picked up momentum as the match progressed. We scored early and went to sleep afterwards. Cape Verde came back and was able to score two goals.
“They were not the best of goals, really. They scored from a penalty, while the other one was more of a dingdong-ding and it was in.”
As South Africa welcome Cape Verde tonight in a return leg in Durban at Moses Mabhida Stadium (kick-off 7pm), the 67-year-old former Bafana coach said it was quite important the senior national side started producing nothing but wins to help their chances of finishing top of their qualifying group.
Mashaba made this observation right after he noticed that the group was still open after Senegal failed to beat Burkina Faso, following a 0-0 draw on Saturday.
“With these kinds of matches, you’ve got to make sure that you win your home games. The other two sides in our group played to a 0-0 draw and that means we cannot afford to produce any more draws,” Mashaba said.
“We have to make sure that we win, no matter what the cost. We cannot be in a situation where we are relying for other countries to do us favours in order for us to go through. We can only hope that our boys will learn from their mistakes and bring a smile to the nation’s faces by winning (tonight’s) matchup.”
Meanwhile, Mashaba said his involvement with the Nedbank Ke Yona Team Search initiative, which ended in SuperSport United beating the amateur side 2-1, has revived his love for coaching and he hopes to be back in a similar position soon.
“Let me start of by saying that football was out of my system after what happened to me, (he was sacked by Safa as the Bafana coach),” Mashaba said. “But I’d like to thank Nedbank for giving me this opportunity to work with this group of lads. Every time I attended their training sessions, I could feel my appetite for the game coming back to me.
“I can now say that I’m available to work with anybody, both inside and outside the country, who might be interested in having my services as head coach.”