Plenty of pride on the line
BAFANA USING CLASH IN SEARCH OF MUCH-NEEDED CONFIDENCE
Goalscoring drought is Mashaba’s main concern as SA prepare to take on Mauritania.
Bafana Bafana paid a visit to the casino opposite their hotel in Nelspruit yesterday, not, it must be stressed, to gamble, but as the guests of a local sponsor.
All bets are off anyway, when it comes to South Africa’s chances of making it to the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, with tomorrow evening’s game against Mauritania simply a chance to restore a bit of pride and gain some confidence ahead of October’s World Cup 2018 qualifier.
There is also the small matter of revenge, as it was Mauritania who effectively sank Bafana’s chances of making it to Gabon, when they stunned them 3-1 in Nouakchott in September 2015.
“The game itself is very big,” said Mamelodi Sundowns forward Sibusiso Vilakazi.
“We are playing for the pride of a nation and people will be coming to support us, to fill up seats … it means a lot, we have to get them a win … to try to by all means rectify what we did wrong when we played against them and to try to get revenge.”
Goals have been hard to come by for Bafana at home in these qualifiers, in fact they have not come at all, with Shakes Mashaba’s side failing to hit the back of the net when hosting Gambia and Cameroon.
All this adds fuel to the constantly raging debate about their goalscoring problem.
“The most interesting part of this is that this is a problem so what do we do about it?” said Vilakazi.
“The only thing you can do is work on it each and every day, to try and make the situation good every time. We have a lot of talent … every single guy in the team, from the defenders, to the midfielders, to the strikers, has goals in him.”
Vilakazi even comes into this game in some sort of scoring form, though his goal on debut for Mamelodi Sundowns against SuperSport United on Sunday was a stroke of luck, a Hlompho Kekana shot hitting him on the head, and going in.
“It was very strange,” said Vilakazi. “I would give it to him (Kekana), because if it wasn’t for him the goal would never have gone in.”
South Africa are likely to be without Vilakazi’s Sundowns team-mate Keagan Dolly for tomorrow’s game, with Bafana’s doctors continuing to monitor his hamstring problem.