Bafana doomed to lose out on a World Cup place
BAFANA Bafana have orchestrated their own downfall for allowing the match against Senegal to be replayed after Fifa ordered them.
That dubious decision has tormented the nation badly and made the team’s qualification for the Russia World Cup untenable.
It was mission impossible for them to overcome the audacious Senegal team.
I understand Safa took a decision out of fairness and respect for Fifa authority, but its leniency came back to haunt it.
The game of football is cruel, one mistake reflects on the team or player’s reputation.
It was a mountain to climb for the Stuart Baxter artillery and omission from the World Cup was inevitable.
Considering the preparation prior the game, Bafana were doomed.
After Shakes Mashaba’s acrimonious departure, Baxter was given a rope to hang himself.
Safa has the habit of entertaining mediocre talent like Baxter.
The road ahead seems obscure, but Safa would rather let the ship sink deep before taking action.
If we talk about accountability, then Baxter deserves to go after playing seven, winning two and losing five for a win percentage of 29%, that is worse than Allister Coetzee’s 41% after 22 games.
Baxter feels no pressure to take responsibility for the apparent mediocre results.
We are in a shambles in sport because boardroom politics takes it toll while administration reports record-breaking profit yearly with fat bonuses for bosses but teams suffer.
Safa doesn’t mind splashing out millions for a mediocre coach at any given time.
Mashaba was secretly given a golden handshake.
We need to adopt the foreign policy in Bafana where every coach signs a performance contract.
Baxter signed a five-year contract despite showing no signs to improve Bafana’s performance.
Baxter said at his first conference as national team coach, “Winning is of paramount importance” and promised to restore the nation’s pride, but results hugely contradict that.
Wandile Mtana, Uitenhage
BAFANA Bafana disappointed us against Senegal and we were outclassed in both games. We should have made sure that we had a winning game plan to beat Senegal at home, but our coach did not have any game plan as compared to Senegal.
We were flat-footed and when we played Senegal at home, I could not believe that three defenders could be beaten by one player very easily.
Goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune had no option as he was exposed. The second goal was a soft one. Again our backline did not communicate well and Senegal took advantage of our mistakes.
I still believe we do have quality players who can compete at the highest level as our PSL is one of the best in the continent and it is made up of quality players from South Africa.
Mashaba was coming along well with the young players and it was bad timing to get rid of him.
Instead we should have applied positive discipline and given him the benefit of the doubt.
Baxter had to come up with his own players and he had little time to prepare them.
I echo Steve Komphela’s words that as South African football-loving fans we need to exercise lots of patience and not expect miracles, and also allow the coach enough space to groom the players.
Richie Piyose, Port Elizabeth