The Furman factor played its part
AFTER a successful Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign, Bafana Bafana captain Dean Furman — one of only two players to play every minute in the qualifiers (the other was Mulomowandau Mathoho) — shared his thoughts with Tshepang Mailwane on the team’s road to qualification I met the coach (Shakes Mashaba) for the first time and he was great. The good thing is a lot of the players had been with him before at junior level and they knew him well. His character is infectious. He makes people laugh and he immediately instilled a great spirit in this team.
We flew out to Sudan and the hotel was very nice and then we got to a packed stadium to play the game. The first 45 minutes was our most disappointing 45 minutes in the qualifiers. We took a while to settle because the pitch was not good. Thanks to (the late goalkeeper) Senzo (Meyiwa), we came in at 0-0 at half time. (Sibusiso) Vilakazi came on and he was unbelievable. He won the game for us and his influence spurred us to victory. We were delighted to get off to a perfect start.
10: We went back to Cape Town with a lot of confidence, especially after our second-half performance against Sudan. We knew the African champions were coming and that it would be a tough game. I just remember that the atmosphere was absolutely incredible. That’s what I loved most about the game. The game finished 0-0, but it was an exciting game. We knew that if we were anything below par we would be in trouble. So we rolled up our sleeves and we got stuck in and we enjoyed ourselves. We played some good football. The difficulty of playing in Congo was the artificial pitch, but we did not use that as an excuse. This team is too focused to make excuses. We had a training camp in Rustenburg and they have an artificial pitch and the facilities there really helped us. We came in at half time at 0-0 and the coach got us to believe that we can win the game.
Our second-half performance was breathtaking. We put our bodies on the line and we got the goals we needed. October 15: The conditions in Polokwane were very difficult. The rain came down very hard, which made it difficult for us to play slick attacking football. I think Congo also really came to frustrate us. They played five in the middle and they stopped us from playing. The positive from us is that we kept a clean sheet.
November
15:
November 19:
The whole week was all about Senzo. It was an emotional week. We went to the gravesite and we went to his house to pay our respects. The good thing for us is that we could dedicate the win and qualifying to him. He was our captain, our leader and our goalkeeper. It was great that we could do it in his home province. The disappointing thing is that we did not score more goals.
They caused some problems for us early in the game. Luckily Darren Keet was there for us in goal. He pulled off some incredible saves and got us out of trouble.
We managed to score the first goal through Tokelo Rantie and it was an incredible goal. He scored again early in the second half, but they pulled one back. Yeye (Reneilwe Letsholonyane) got sent off and that threw us off a little.
We put our bodies on the line, but sadly they scored in the last minute. We were disappointed that we did not win, but we finished the group unbeaten.