Why should we expect different results?
On Friday, I went to FNB Stadium to watch the Bafana Bafana match against Eswatini not as a TV analyst but as a football supporter. I was looking forward to seeing a lot of supporters come to the game, but the stadium was empty. Before the match started, I was hoping that at least there would be supporters who would come out and support the country, but to my surprise, there was only a handful of them. That was very disappointing. With just a few months to go before the Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire, it worries me that people did not come out in numbers. As a fan, it was also disappointing that we were not playing against tough opposition, and I’m saying this with all due respect to Eswatini. You look at the FIFA rankings between the two teams and we should have easily won that game. We struggled to score goals against Eswatini! If other big countries, like Tunisia, were playing against Eswatini, do you think they were going to struggle the way we did? I doubt it. That is what disappoints me. We don’t have a winning mentality, we are not ruthless in front of goal. We don’t annihilate the opposition, especially those who are below us in FIFA rankings. We need to finish them off, especially when we are playing at home. I was watching the game thinking to myself that even though I wanted us to win, I was not surprised by the result because my expectations were not high. We are not where we think we are in world football, let’s be realistic about that. We haven’t reached the level where we should be if you consider our development and the way we play – it’s simple as that. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but if you look at how our players are developed and how they perform at national team level, why should we expect different results? Based on our development, we shouldn’t expect more. The match against Eswatini made me look at things in perspective and be realistic. When Hugo Broos was appointed as a coach, he said it as well.
On Blom starting his first international match
Some people thought Njabulo Blom was the Man of the Match, some people thought otherwise. But in my opinion, in this game it was difficult to select the Man of the Match – that’s how underwhelming the performance was. Blom has been doing well at club level and in that game, he did what he could and he didn’t have a bad game. I think it was fair to give him the Man of the Match (award), but if you have to analyse the entire team, there is still a lot of catching up we must do as a team. We had good individual players like Lyle Foster, who is on form for his club, and other players who are on form for their respective clubs. In order to build a cohesive team that will have a great understanding, we need players who will play together on a regular basis. It’s one thing if a player is doing well for his team as an individual and it’s a different case when it comes to the national team. Even though we have all these good players, the truth is they are not going to perform the way they do at club level because they play together occasionally and international matches are few and far between. But I still believe that the gap can be bridged and made smaller if we can play more games against top-ranked teams. We need to play against tougher opposition on a regular basis and that is something that can bring us up to speed. We know that we are struggling to introduce players through the junior national team system because where are the national U17, U20 and U23 players? I’m not sure when was the last time we heard that our junior national teams were playing, and then we expect players to be ready to play at senior national team and perform miracles without going through these processes. We are expecting too much given our circumstances and the reality of the situation. We are not there at that level, let’s be realistic.
On the poor attendance at national team matches
When we talk about the issue of supporters, we need to answer this simple question: Why do supporters watch football or support their respective teams? The answer is: excitement. Obviously, as a supporter, you want your country or club to win, but if there are no results, it’s discouraging for supporters. If not results, then what is motivating them to come out in numbers? People, whether we like it or not, want to follow winners. That is the reality. When I was watching the Springbok matches during this year’s World Cup in France, I couldn’t help it but to think of Bafana Bafana. Look at the passion and the atmosphere of rugby supporters when the Springboks are playing. That is because they are winners. All the rugby fans will either watch the Boks on TV or go to the stadium when they are playing. It’s not complicated, there is nothing difficult about this. People want to go to the stadiums to watch a winning team.
On what Bafana need to do to improve
There is not much time left between now and January and we needed to build momentum before the Africa Cup of Nations start, and a team like Eswatini was never going to build our confidence. At least we needed teams that are closer to what we are going to face next year. We all agree that individuals do well for their teams but not for the national team… then let’s give them more international games. Let’s give them more opposition who are tougher and are going to give them resistance. With more games against tougher opposition, they will gain more confidence. It’s as simple as that.
On the 1-1 draw against Ivory Coast
I think it’s a good result for us considering we were playing against a team that is above or at least on our level. Cote d’Ivoire are ranked 50 in the world, so it’s around our level, so to speak. 1-1 is a fair result, we played against an opponent that we should be playing against. We should be playing them, Senegal, Cameroon and Ghana. I think they dominated the match, but we definitely had moments. We were playing against a team that wanted to not lose, especially in the second half. In the first half, we had a bit of confidence, there was a positive attitude to want to score the goals. In the second half we were playing more on the break. Cote d’Ivoire have the quality and most of their players play in top-tier leagues, not just overseas. They play for good teams and the striker who scored the goal (Sebastien Haller) plays for Borussia Dortmund in Germany. They had better quality and, under those circumstances, we did fairly well. From now going forward, we should take it from here because my problem is consistency. I still don’t understand why we played a draw and failed to score against Eswatini. Maybe it’s because there was a difference in the line-up. There is also a motivation factor because against Eswatini, we couldn’t get out of gear number two. Against Cote d’Ivoire, we had Lebo Mothiba up front, Lyle Foster came on. We made a few changes, including Bongokuhle Hlongwane, and that could have been the difference. But again, why were we not motivated last week Friday because that is a game where we should have scored more goals? Khuliso Mudau was on fire against Cote d’Ivoire, getting stuck into tackles and winning them. Themba Zwane was in a mood and he scored. Cote d’Ivoire were (physically) bigger than us and they could push us off the ball, but we had the strength because we could play. But we did fairly well and held on against a nation that has players in better leagues.