Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki has work to do to get his charges up to scratch
It may have been only one match after the lay-off, but the game against Namibia shows Bafana Bafana have not improved an inch since their last qualification for the 2002 Fifa World Cup, writes
If I were Ntseki, I will always start each and every match, friendly or not, with the strongest possible side
● You remember Seychelles in 2018? Cape Verde in 2017? Or Bafana Bafana’s infamous dance of shame at the Mbombela Stadium in 2011?
These are just a few tragic moments that Bafana and their previous coaches have put us through over the years.
Bafana last did anything South Africans can be proud of when they qualified for the 2002 Fifa World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
Ever since that 2002 sojourn, when a now 51-year-old Lucas Radebe was still a Bafana captain, every Bafana coach, including the current one, Molefi Ntseki, has been building the team.
Judging by our results and the fact that today Bafana are languishing at No 71 in the latest Fifa world rankings and 13th on the continent, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say, 18 years later, that we haven’t even found the right material for the foundation of this house we’re supposed to be building.
We saw it again at the Royal Bafokeng
Sports Palace on Thursday when Ntseki’s charges were dominated by a 117th-ranked Namibian side to draw a friendly tie 1-1.
After that match, part of what Ntseki mumbled before the television cameras was that “we had a good game”.
That’s how low we’ve placed our standards and it’s no wonder we have no single player in any of the biggest leagues in the world. We’re happy with mediocrity. We even find words to favour it.
Surely Ntseki, who went through the emotional roller-coaster ride alongside former coach Stuart Baxter when trying to qualify for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, doesn’t want the same with 2021 Afcon qualification.
Bafana beat Seychelles, currently ranked 202, 6-0 at home, but put themselves in huge trouble when they could only draw 0-0 against the same minnows away from home.
Thanks to Percy Tau, who scored a brace in a do-or-die match against Libya in March last year, Bafana ended up in the actual tournament in Egypt in June last year.
Baxter was lucky to be kept by the SA Football Association in 2017 when his team were beaten 2-1 by Cape Verde (currently ranked 102), both home and away, in the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers.
The less said about the Mbombela dance the better, but for the record Pitso Mosimane, our No 1 coach currently, lost his Bafana job after that disaster.
If I were Ntseki, I wouldn’t play games with Bafana today, even if I was playing Namibia. I will always start each and every match, friendly or not, with the strongest possible side. And if I lead by 5-0 or so at halftime, that’s when I will throw in one or two new players for experimentation.
Bafana have not moved an inch since 2002 because every Bafana coach thinks we’re world beaters and so can take every minnow for granted.
Ntseki’s team would have been a lot more confident heading into today’s friendly against Zambia in Phokeng if they’d beaten Namibia. But that could have been possible only if Ntseki had started with his strongest side to build the momentum going into back-to-back 2021 Afcon qualifiers against other islanders, Sao Tome & Principe (ranked 182), next month.
Fiddling with team composition has to stop. No other self-respecting football nation does this. Bafana is no place to do trials and the sooner Ntseki gets that, the better our chances of progress on the international front. Anything less andwe’ll continue being the laughing stock.