Once again Bafana are shattering our hopes
Here we go again. It is sad that we had to be embarrassed like that and have the players come back and arrogantly tell us to get over it. Bafana Bafana are seriously in trouble but the bigger problem is that there seems to be no leadership from the people in charge.
When Shakes Mashaba uttered things that were said to be uncalled for and demeaning to Safa’s reputation, he was quickly dealt with and sent packing. This time around Safa have been notable for their silence.
No one seems to care that Stuart Baxter’s Bafana have shamed us more than whatever Mashaba said or could ever do. The goalless draw in the Seychelles has brought our football into disrepute. I hope Safa are investigating the circumstances that led to the unsatisfactory result.
Baxter tried to explain what had happened but all I could hear were empty excuses. Really? Blaming the ball boys? Blaming the feigning of injuries?
Okay. Let me be fair and say these things happened. Let us say the time-wasting antics by the ball boys took away five playing minutes from the game. That leaves 85 minutes. Then let’s add the time-wasting by the players and say it took 10 minutes. That leaves us with 75 minutes.
This is enough time to beat Seychelles whose team are made of people who are semi-professionals, people who play the game on a part-time basis. And it also took us 45 minutes to score three goals in the first leg at FNB.
This is why I believe there is more than meets the eye in this
Sibongiseni Gumbi
goalless draw. We need Safa to investigate and tell us what happened. It can’t just be that the Seychelles suddenly became a good team in two days. A friend who is probably more patriotic than me found Baxter’s excuses to be pertinent and even suggested the Seychelles used some muti on our players.
But even if so, we need to know and we need to get their inyanga to come help us. The pictures of players relaxing on the beach on Monday didn’t do Bafana any good either. It looked like they were on holiday and just enjoyed themselves.
We know there have been problems in that Bafana camp as some players do not take playing for the national team as seriously as they should be. Remember, there was a reported fight that broke out in Durban after a similar display against Cape Verde where certain players argued about each other’s commitment.
If this was the case again, we need to know. We were shamed and disgraced and if it is the coach who was careless in his planning as many suggest, then we need to know so we can re-evaluate his qualifications to guide our national team.
We are not looking for excuses but we want reasons. It is only reasons that will make us “move on” as some of the players have suggested we do.
As things stand now, Bafana are likely to not qualify for Afcon again – which would be a huge shame.
Just after Tuesday’s game a Nigerian friend whom I had laughed at when we beat the Super Eagles in the first game of the Afcon qualifiers sent me a mocking message on Facebook asking if I was okay. I was not okay but I had to pretend and take his mocking on the chin just like he did.
The only difference is that he could say it with pride that the Super Eagles would bounce back, and they did. I didn’t want to say we will do the same because we should not even have fallen in the first place. Safa, please take decisive action. This can’t keep happening.