Letsoaka: We take it for granted in South Africa
Thomas Kwenaite: How have you settled down in your new environment since arriving in Botswana nine months ago?
Serame Letsoaka:
I have been here since June. In the beginning, there were a lot of challenges because I didn’t know the environment and the lay of the land and there were a lot of meetings that were held with a lot of people inside and outside the Botswana Football Association (BFA) and I had a lot of information to gather. This information-gathering has assisted me to try and maneuver myself within the struggle I had initially experienced when I arrived in Gaborone.
TK: And what have been the challenges that you have faced since arriving?
SL:
You must understand that there was a Technical Director (TD) here, and there had been a lot of other people that wanted this position badly. In addition, there were people whom we went to interviews together for this position. And in the media, they would ask the BFA, “Why take a foreigner when we have able and capable people in the country?” At that time, most of them (aspirant coaches) knew that they were capable of taking this position. It was only later when they realised after we conducted a few coaching workshops - because I had invited them to come and hear what I thought about football and how we could together build the country - that they got to understand what I was bringing to the country that the situation improved.
TK: When you travel around the country and checking the football scene, what can you tell us regarding youth development?
SL:
I’ve not been to all the areas because Botswana is such a vast country. But I can safely say, for me, development is non- existent. It’s like in South Africa where people would be playing informally over weekends. The school’s system as well is not properly structured. I think when Gianni Infantino took over as FIFA President, there was a youth programme in place with a cycle of 20162019 that was designed and implemented during 2017. It was an elite programme of 20 teams along the East and South regions. We had about 40 coaches that are dealing with this programme. When you go from one area to another, youth leagues are non-existent.
TK: How do you aim to rectify the situation to make sure the youth are involved in football in order to get developed?
SL:
The culture today when we are in Gaborone, for instance, is such that we must have a U13, U15 and U17 in place and if you go to the district of Serowe, the same principle must apply even if you go up North, but it’s even worse in the Kasane area. If you go to the West, in Hukuntsi and Tsabong regions, they are sandy areas. They do not have proper structures of a lleague set-tup simplyil bbecause off ththe smaller population in those remote areas, therefore they can only put together about five teams because the next town is very far from other villages and, as a result, you cannot have a league taking place.
TK: How do you correct the situation and make it workable? SL:
When we arrived here, we checked everything and came up with a plan that in this kind of area, we must do things in a different way so that we have a proper league running. We want to see boys in the North who are physically imposing and whose muscle definition is different from boys in the South, getting brought into the system. Some of them are born closer to the Angolan border and others close to the Zambian border and these are the players that we want to make sure participate in our structured tournaments. There had been talk with people complaining that development in Botswana is designed to benefit kids in the South (Gaborone area). So, we try to go even to those so-called neglected areas where we can get these special talented kids we are talking about. If you go to the West of Botswana, there lies the Kalahari Desert. In those areas, you also find a special breed of player. The level on endurance in boys from that area is very high. I think it’s in their genes. TK: How, then, do you integrate
these boys into the system? SL:
We have to use the schools wisely to make sure that we have Schools of Excellence like it was previously the case in South Africa. They (Botswana) have boarding schools concentrated in a particular area, but we need to have these boarding schools, which is a Senior Secondary that will be fed talented boys from three or four Primary Schools within the same area. In the South, we have Madiba, which is fed by three or four Primary Schools and up north, in Maun as well as in Kasane, we are going to be using the same strategy. And in Tsabong, there is a good one – a unified school from first to grade 12 - we will have both juniors and seniors together in one school and schools around the area will also participate.
TK: It sounds good on paper, but how practical is the whole scheme?
SL:
We are talking to Educators that every Friday afternoon, at least from 14h00 – 16h00, give us the kids and let us roll out the grassroots programme. They have a government programme called “Re ba bona ha!” (We discover them here!) It is exactly the same thing as grassroots. How can we integrate them and make sure we start identifying talent from a young age and expose them to football at a higher level? At the moment, we are also having FIFA youth coaching courses in Francistown. The next step, we must make sure that we have as many coaches as possible; to make sure who are coaching the youth. We produce coaches, but nobody wants to coach the youth. Everybody wants to go where they will get a lot of money (Premier League), but we are saying, “You cannot go there if you do not have proper talent coming through from the youth structures.”
TK: You also spoke about the Futsal. How does it complement the present structure?
SL:
We are going to start a Futsal league in the North where you will be able to produce a lot of inside forwards or number 10s in small-sided matches. This is where you develop a special kind of player. There is also a strong traditional youth tournament similar to the Coca-Cola U17 in South Africa. We must introduce tournaments of that nature here, which we would integrate in our programmes. We have two beautiful artificial fields and, through a proper and structured routine of
identification of talent, when the boys are between the ages of 18 and 19, the clubs in the Premier League will be able to sign them.
TK: How did Batswana embrace their new Technical Director?
SL:
We were very naïve when it comes to the functions of a Technical Director. Initially, a FIFA handbook detailed the functions of a TD and, in the beginning, the TD scrutinised what the senior national coach was doing. And sometimes because the TD was receiving a salary far less than the national coach, if the results were not forthcoming, the TD was ready to take over. And FIFA realised that and decided to place the TD at a horizontal space with the senior coach. Now both the coach and TD report to the CEO as well as to the President and Technical Committee. I cannot go and impose myself on the senior coach and tell him what to do. But if he comes to me and say we want you to conduct a training session, I will do it.
TK: Since you left SA, what are the lessons you have learned since arriving in Botswana?
SL:
One of the key things in RSA is that we take qualification for major continental tournaments for granted. The opportunities that have been created for people to learn have been taken for granted. People here in Botswana have been crying for courses for many years. The CAF Coaching licenses were introduced in 2008. Now, to date we have two coaches with CAF B licenses in addition to three CAF C license holders. You can understand that there is a dire need for qualified coaches in the country, which we easily take for granted in RSA. What I am saying is that, for me, coming here and introducing the education of the coaches is one priority area. What I can take home is that I wish Botswana had the same knowledge and the infrastructure that we have in RSA and I believe they could have been very far if they had the knowledge that we have.
TK: How do you fast-track the development of coaches in Botswana? SL:
There are colleagues that I know in RSA and would arrange some attachment or exchange programme, even if it’s for a month only. I think it will go a long way towards the upliftment of the standard of the game in Botswana. A large number of the people here follow RSA football and a lot of players aspire to have what we have in the country. The facilities that we take for granted, here there is such a scarcity of the commodity (facilities) that some clubs in the second tier use dusty grounds for their league matches and it’s some of the things delaying progress here.
TK: And how is the standard of referees in Botswana and especially because they also fall under your jurisdiction? SL:
The standard is quite high. In many CAF competitions, we have a lot of our referees traveling and doing matches outside the country. When I came here, the first thing we did was to introduce a referees’ course for 15-year-old boys. We want these boys to get as much exposure of coaching and refereeing as possible before the end of this year to fasttrack their development.
TK: You are a FIFA-accredited Coaching Instructor. Are you going to stop this function now that you are attached to the BFA?
SL:
Not at all. When I arrived in June, one of the things I requested before signing the contract, I discussed with the BFA President (MacLean Letshwiti) and told him that I didn’t want to completely cut ties with my other duties as the FIFA Instructor. In the second month after coming here, I went to Swaziland where I conducted a Coaching Course and, during December, I traveled to Malawi to con- duct another one there.
TK: You seem very fond of Malawi judging by the warm manner in which you speak about the country.
SL:
My admiration of Malawi is their Youth Development programme. Malawi has a strong strip of land from the bottom in the South right up to the North. It’s very long and runs up to 1000 km, which is what we have currently in Botswana. They have a functional league of 34 teams in the North and another 34 in the South. So, going to Malawi gave me an insight into how they conduct things in their country and I would be implementing some of the positives here in Botswana.
TK: The Zebras have not really covered themselves in glory during the 2019 AFCON qualifiers, securing only one point in five matches.
SL:
It’s not only the Zebras that are of concern. We just lost a 2020 Olympic preliminary contest against Malawi with our U23 team. In June when I arrived, there was the U17 tournament in Mauritius and after two matches which we won, we needed a point to progress but lost the third match and were thus eliminated. Our senior women team played well against Banyana Banyana, but were eliminated in extra time for the AWCON. Everybody will understand that we do not have drivers of the Ferrari cars that we have. We have put up advertisements for positions of U17, U20 and U23 coaches. In Africa, we seem to have a problem that because we have been eliminated, we have to wait until the 2024 Olympics are around the corner to start preparations. The truth is that we have to start preparing for 2024 now and not tomorrow.
“When you have R500, you are not rich, when you have R1000, you are not rich either.”
TK: That sounds like a very ambitious plan.
SL:
The U20 AFCON is a twoyear programme. In South Africa, the U20 squad that qualified for the World Cup and AFCON, which consisted of the likes of Kamohelo Mokotjo, Daylon Claasen, Thulani Serero, Thulani Hlatshwayo and others, we started putting that team together when they were about 14-15 years and they graduated from U17 to U20 together. They had spent an awful lot of time together and got to know and understand each other better. That is what we want to implement here.
TK: You also spoke of important lessons you learned in South America…
SL:
I went to Uruguay and discovered that their U20 go into camp every Sunday. Then on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after training, they are released back to their teams where they continue to prepare for their weekend matches starting on Thursday and Friday. Then Sunday they report back for camp and the whole process is repeated. We must do everything like building team spirit and make them understand the importance of playing for your country; teach them things like when you have R500, you are not rich, when you have R1 000, you are not rich either; how to behave in society as a national asset; how to take criticism; the social media as well as how to interact around the community. There are a lot of lessons with the group aimed at mentally preparing them for national duties. TK: Thank you very much, coach, and best of luck!
“I cannot go and impose myself on the senior coach.”