Mashaba remains defiant

UNDER-FIRE Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba said his primary concern is not whether he will have a job after the meeting of the Safa technical committee on Saturday.

Instead, the 66-year-old said he was focused on improving his team before the start of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers next month.

He believes the U23 players he picked and gave a run in the matches against Egypt on Tuesday and Mauritania on Friday last week gave a good showing and, in his view, augurs well for Bafana going forward.

“One good thing is that we have brought in young players and if you check here, it is six or seven players. All of them played very well and there is no one that we doubt to say they didn’t play [well] in both matches,” said Mashaba, in reference to the likes of Abbubaker Mobara, Gift Motupa and Deolin Mekoa.

Of concern, though, is that Mashaba also singled out other problems such as his misfiring strikers.

“I want to put it straight that, most unfortunately, there is nothing we can do [about that] in Bafana. We’ve got only three days to deal with that and it is very much impossible. It is not only in Bafana Bafana, this must also go to clubs. All club coaches when they have lost they will tell you, we have problems scoring goals,” Mashaba said.

One of the contentious issues is that Bafana seem capable of winning matches when it least matters.

“I think it is not to say we are winning friendlies and we are losing vital games. There could be something where we need to sit all together as one and look at what could be the cause of that,” he added.