I hope there’s a plan to make sure young talent doesn’t fall through the cracks
ON Monday I was teleported to the future. No, seriously. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me after I had watched the Oscars, where my favourite childhood actor – Michael J Fox – presented an award. Fox starred in the epic Back to the Future franchise from the 1980s and 90s.
Any efforts to snap out of my simulated reality were unsuccessful, and a youngster by the name of Luther Singh made sure of it. He wasn’t at the Academy Awards and didn’t receiving a standing ovation from Hollywood.
No, young Singh was in Ndola, Zambia instead, dancing his way to stardom with a hattrick for South Africa at the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations and on a quest for a place at the Fifa U20 World Cup in South Korea in May and June.
It’s easier to single out the Braga (Portugal) forward as an obvious choice to graduate to the senior men’s team because he was a standout on the night, but in truth the entire team was just incredible to watch. I was a tad worried when they initially went a goal down, concerned that this dream would turn into a nightmare that would haunt me all week, or at least until Amajita face Senegal in their second Afcon match in their group to try and redeem themselves if they’d lost.
But the never-say-die attitude of Thabo Senong’s charges saw them come back and thump the Indomitable Lions 3-1, with the goals coming from a 19-year-old who recently joined Braga following a short spell with GAIS in Sweden. I’ll wait until after they have hopefully won the tournament and booked their spot at the World Cup before I harp on about them any more, but I really hope there is a plan in place to make sure Singh and his teammates don’t fall through the cracks.
Yes, it’s a real problem in this country that there seems to be no formula to monitor and nurture emerging talent. Former Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba was lauded in the early stages of his tenure for promoting, among others, a 17-year-old Rivaldo Coetzee and eventually selecting him to play in a continental tournament a few months later. Mashaba lost the plot much later on as the pressure of the job got the better of him, rolling back the years by recalling old hands such as Eleazer Rodgers and Bradley Grobler to help aid the scoring conundrum. His replacement is expected to be named this week, and I’m desperate to see what his strategy for a synergy between all national teams will look like.
We could really use some consistency in this department. Safa have been going around in circles for far too long when it comes to finding the right formula to get a player from the junior to the senior team.
It goes without saying that we should be qualifying for major tournaments. But that shouldn’t be at the expense of continuing to look to the future. It’s just one game that Amajita so gallantly won but, for me, I am convinced that our prospects are in good hands.
Give the kids a break.