Shakes ready for open game
GAMBIA will open up and be unable to defend on their home turf, said Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba ahead of his team’s departure yesterday afternoon for their 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Saturday.
The South Africans meet Gambia at the Independence Stadium in Bakau (6.30pm SA time) in a more than precarious position in Group M.
Bafana, on just three points, seem as resigned to using this match as much as a building exercise for crucial group stage qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup, as winning to keep their slim Gabon 2017 hopes alive.
“Gambia have got to come out playing now,” Mashaba said after his squad’s training session at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto campus yesterday.
“They are going to open up they must. And I think that’s where we want them.
“When we played them here they clearly had come for a draw. Nothing else. They had nine players in their own half the whole time.
“It will be a whole different approach from them away.
“I have managed to get some clips. I watched their friendly game where they drew 0-0 against Zambia yesterday [on Monday].”
Following three draws and a defeat from four matches, Bafana can finish with a maximum of nine points should they beat Gambia and then Mauritania at home in September.
They have to rely on Cameroon – losing both their last two games against Mauritania at home and Gambia away – or a complicated and unlikely set of permutations to squeeze in as one of two best runners-up, to qualify for Gabon. –
“Unfortunately we just have to do our best now, make sure we collect maximum points, sit back and look what’s going to happen,” Mashaba said.
Bafana have released left back Thabo Matlaba, who has a personal matter to attend to.
Mpho Makola has a right side contusion (dead leg) injury picked up for Orlando Pirates in their 3-2 Nedbank Cup final defeat to SuperSport United in Polokwane on Saturday. Rivaldo Coetzee has a minor jaw injury, said Bafana team doctor Thulani Ngwenya.
Mashaba said there would be no replacement for Matlaba.