Igesund turns back on rookies

Shock defeat to Zimbabwe has spurred rethink on vow to blood new talent

BAFANA’S Tuesday night shock 2-1 defeat to Zimbabwe, which led to under-fire coach Gordon Igesund labelling the performance as “disjointed”, has sent his plans into disarray.

BAFANA Bafana’s Tuesday night shock 2-1 defeat to Zimbabwe, which led to under-fire coach Gordon Igesund labelling the performance as “disjointed” and of a “low level”, has sent his plans into disarray by leaving no room for experiments.

The national team mentor has now vowed to only call up the big guns, backtracking on his promise to take risks with new players.

Igesund slated his local players for a poor performance and had harsh words for the inexperienced squad members.

SA ended a year of agony on the international stage with the defeat to neighbours Zimbabwe at Orlando Stadium. This came just three days after failing to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil next year despite beating Botswana 4-1 in Durban.

In the build-up to the clash against the Warriors of Zimbabwe, Igesund had said he was ready to “produce future champions” by fielding what would possibly be the new Bafana as he looked to build for upcoming tournaments.

But having seen his players struggle against Zimbabwe, who fielded the bulk of their South African-based stars including goalscorers Knowledge Musona and Cuthbert Malajila, the Bafana coach has backpedalled.

“I will tell you what I am going to do from now on,” Igesund said. “(When) we start our next friendly matches, I am going to call-up all the experienced players including those based overseas and then throw in one or two youngsters.”

He said in his post-match comments that he felt sorry for some of the players he fielded against Zimbabwe. “I really threw them in the deep end.

“The level was low and just not good enough. We were disjointed throughout the match.”

The coach had hinted at leaving out the over-30s for Bafana’s upcoming games. But as he looks to start on a clean slate ahead of the 2015 African Nations Cup in Morocco and possibly qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia if he is still in the hot seat, the old guard are far from being shown the door.

“After a game like this, you can see that some players have a lot of work to do,” Igesund said. “If you compare how a player like (Bongani) Zungu played against Botswana coming off the bench and how he did against Zimbabwe having started, you can see his level dropped and he never improved.

“Zungu should be one of our star players going into 2015 and the World Cup in Russia, but he won’t improve playing (with) this lot right now. When he has Kagisho Dikgacoi and Dean Furman around to carry him, then he is brilliant.” Igesund is a known admirer of the tried and tested but was willing to move out of his comfort zone in an attempt to look ahead. Only Bernard Parker kept his place in the starting line-up on Tuesday after the coach made wholesale changes to the team that beat Botswana.

“I wanted to be genuine and see what we have, but we really had no imagination and there was nothing in it for us in the match,” Igesund said. “I now know who is not good enough for this team and I will encourage some of these players to keep doing well for their clubs.

“If I wanted to protect myself, I would have never allowed the overseas-based players to go back. But I only asked Darren Keet to stay so we can see him.

“For me, the likes of Ayanda Patosi and Kamohelo Mokotjo are at a much higher level than the guys we had for this match.”