Russian roulette: what now for Bafana?
BAXTER: BAFANA COUNT COST OF DOUBLE BLUNDER AGAINST CAPE VERDE
Devastated coach admits it was most disappointing moment of his entire coaching career.
Stuart Baxter is usually a man who keeps his cool, whatever fury is burning inside, but on Tuesday night in the bowels of Moses Mabhida Stadium, the cracks were visible.
Bafana Bafana had just succumbed to a second defeat to Cape Verde in five harrowing days, this one an embarrassing display in front of their own fans, leaving their World Cup 2018 dreams hanging by a thread.
Baxter was brought in to lead Bafana to Russia, and was handed a decent base of four points from two Group D qualifiers by the efforts of Shakes Mashaba (and, one might argue, Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey).
But it has fallen apart quickly – the only saving grace over this period is that two draws between Senegal and Burkina Faso in Dakar and Ouagadougo mean that somehow, Bafana are still only two points off the top of the group.
It is still, at this stage, hard to see Baxter’s side getting the wins at home to Burkina Faso in October and away to Senegal in November that would give them some chance of making it to Russia.
The Bafana coach looked a defeated man on Tuesday, snapping at certain journalists’ questions. In a more sober moment, he said frankly that this was the most disappointing moment of his entire coaching career.
“I have not had a more disappointing feeling than now,” said Baxter. “The Norway coach, Lars Lagerback, had never lost by more than 3-0 in his career and this week, he lost 6-0 to Germany, and he said he had never felt worse. This feels like that.
“I am very disappointed, verging on devastated and at this stage I don’t want to make that call,” he added, on whether Bafana could still make it to Russia.
“I would like to see what happens in the other result and see if it is mathematically possible. We have got to improve … at this moment it is difficult to see the sun coming up, let alone us qualifying for Russia.”
The other result did, of course, go Bafana’s way in Ouagadougou, but it is hard to see how Baxter lifts his troops, after this latest humiliation.
It is safe to say that Bafana underestimated Cape Verde over the two games – in Durban, while Bafana’s shooting was, to be polite, mediocre, Galatasaray winger Garry Rodrigues showed them how it’s done with two stunning goals.
Lucio Antunes’ side have gone from zero points from two games to real World Cup contenders.
“Cape Verde, in the two games against us were better than the team I analysed,” admitted Baxter.
“I analysed two, three or four games. A couple of younger players came in that were lively, and they got out more by playing a ‘big fella’ as a target man. They are a lot more difficult now than they were at the beginning of the campaign, but that doesn’t mean we could not have got two wins.”