‘Big three can boost Bafana’

A STRONG Kaizer Chiefs‚ Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns will mean a strong Bafana Bafana‚ Chiefs coach Steve Komphela has said.

South Africa’s big three occupy the top three positions in the Absa Premiership.

However‚ Sundowns are by far the most convincing at the top, with 25 points from 12 games.

That gives Downs a five-point lead over secondplaced Pirates and six over third-placed Chiefs‚ and the Brazilians also have two games in hand over six of the teams below them except fourth-placed Bloemfontein Celtic (19 points from 12 games).

Komphela‚ a Bafana captain and defender under Clive Barker in the early 1990s‚ said a healthy big three normally transferred to the national team.

“In the past‚ whenever you had a very strong Bafana Bafana‚ you would have maybe a Steve Komphela as one from Free State Stars‚” he said.

“But the rest of the players who came from the team from 1992‚ when we started building the national team‚ came [mostly] from Mamelodi Sundowns‚ Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.

“So that is also a pointer that if you have your top teams in the country doing well it is definitely going to rub off on the national team.

“Because they are used to different pressures. The pressure at Chiefs is different to that at another team below them.

“And teams who are on top of the log most of the time are playing in continental competitions‚ so that international experience and exposure helps them. “And those competitions help your national team.” Given that only one of the big three have been in any sort of genuinely convincing form (Pirates have one win from nine matches and Chiefs two from the same number‚ despite their league positions)‚ perhaps Komphela’s view does not express a great amount of hope for Bafana.