Impatience the reason for football shambles

We are an impatient idiotic bunch. This is something I have to shamefully admit as a South African. Look at how many incidences of road rage, street fights and other violent acts happen daily in this country. Just this week a video of a church group who attacked officers of the law was trending on social networks.

All this comes from our being impatient and wanting things to go our way – and immediately. Okay, before you accuse me of being an expert on idiocy, let me qualify my opening statement.

It was impatience that led to Shakes Mashaba being kicked out of Bafana Bafana. He was im- patient in that he let things that happened away from the pitch affect his conduct which led to him pushing back Safa officials’ congratulatory hands after that now infamous win over Senegal over a year ago.

Inasmuch as that hand may have been followed by a fake smile, he should have extended his own and embraced it with the calmness of a toad sitting on a rock on a sunny morning.

But he allowed his emotions to overrule him.

Safa also lost their bearings and an issue that could have been kept in-house, never reaching the public, was turned into a disgusting spat.

Or was it because they were @SbongsKaDonga already looking for something to pin on Bra Shakes so they could get rid of him? That is an issue for another day.

With a little bit of patience and understanding, and putting what’s more important – Bafana Bafana – before anything else, we might have come out of the World Cup qualifiers a little better than the tattered and battered lot we are now. Our impatience has come back to haunt us.

I have already heard a few whispers from people saying Baxter must now leave because losing four of six qualifiers is just too poor a record for any coach to keep their job.

Again that is impatient. Trust me, I am not fanatical about Baxter, but firing him now would be a big mistake.

To be fair, he was never given a chance to build his own team and had to hit the ground running.

I have always said we need to forget the 2018 World Cup and aim a little further with the 2019 Afcon and 2022 World Cup.

It is now a time for us to give Baxter time to build his team.

There was surely something in his presentation that made the Safa technical team pick him. I know you will want to question that technical team’s capabilities, but let us trust them and believe they made the right choice.

I have a feeling Baxter has a big task ahead because he needs to break up the team he was using and build a new one because I sense there is disunity there and that is something you cannot repair.

Just a side note to Baxter: please find your inner “Steve Komphela” and you will be fine, and only then will you be able to execute your plan for our national team. Failure to do that will set you on a very well-travelled road out of Safa House.