Four red lights flashing for Bafana today

SOUTH Africa hosting a team positioned 91 places below them in the Fifa world rankings suggests a home win should be a formality.

But Bafana Bafana need to be aware of these four factors that could count against them at the Moses Mabhida Stadium today.

Complacency: South Africa’s best performances in the 2015 African Nations Cup qualifiers came away on the road, while they looked lethargic, jittery and at times well below par in their home fixtures.

That was likely in part due to complacency and the expectation, bar the Nigeria game perhaps, that they would win at home, which was never matched in performance.

Coach Shakes Mashaba talks as though Bafana should be beating Germany every other week and while that confidence is admirable, that can suggest to the players they need not give their all against weaker opposition when his side in fact needs a dollop of reality.

The unknown: Mashaba openly admits he does not scout other teams and even if he did, would find little on Gambia after they have spent most of the past two years serving a CAF ban for fielding overage players at junior level.

What is known is that Gambia have more players in the top-five leagues in Europe than South Africa with Modou Secka Barrow (Swansea City, England) and Sulayman Marreh (Granada, Spain).

Goals? What goals?: None of the South African forwards in the squad for the Gambia match have a goal between them in an international. In fact, the top-scoring players in the squad are midfielders Bongani Zundu and Mandla Masango with three goals each. It is likely that South Africa will need to look to the midfield again to provide support in the goal-scoring stakes and with the likes of May Mahlangu, Oupa Manyisa, Andile Jali and Thuso Phala there, they do have players with an eye for goal.

No Plan B: Mashaba enjoyed excellent success early in his tenure but it is safe to say his team and way of playing has now been found out. Any opposition worth their salt will have done research on Bafana given the plethora of information and video analysis available and worked out a plan to counter them.