Great, but do not get carried away

Yes, it is only the first game, and an international friendly at that, one of the more irrelevant types of game in all of football, but the early signs from Molefi Ntseki’s Bafana Bafana were promising on Sunday, as they beat Mali to win the Nelson Mandela Challenge.

It wasn’t just that Bafana managed a 2-1 victory over a strong Mali outfit, the manner in which they won was full of the kind of swagger missing for large parts of Stuart Baxter’s time as Bafana head coach. It does seem, at first glance, that Ntseki’s team will be more attacking than Baxter’s with fullbacks Thapelo Morena and Innocent Maela encouraged to go forward in Port Elizabeth, and Thulani Serero deployed in an attacking midfield role, but they could also in turn be far weaker defensively than Baxter’s South Africa.

Baxter’s Bafana were built on a solid defence, pressing, keeping compact and playing a lot of counter-attacking football, which worked, for example, in the brilliant win over Nigeria in their opening 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, and in the excellent 1-0 win over hosts Egypt in the 2019 Africa Nations Cup quarterfinals.

Often, however, Bafana were rather limp in terms of taking the initiative, as seen in their qualifiers at home to Libya or in the Seychelles, and in much of their overall Africa Cup of Nations finals campaign, where in the group stages they were awful to watch.

Ntseki’s team played with more controlled aggression against Mali, prepared to play out of defence, with some slick passing football at times cutting through the Eagles, and with any flicks and tricks productive as opposed to simply showboating.

Serero was particularly inspired, while Keagan Dolly played well until he picked up yet another injury and Themba Zwane sparkled coming on as Dolly’s replacement. Thembinkosi Lorch also gave a performance with more sparkle than those he has produced of late for Orlando Pirates and Bradley Grobler led the line well, even though he could not grab himself a goal.

With Percy Tau and possibly Lebo Mothiba to come back into this Bafana side, there is reason to be excited on the attacking front for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Ghana and Sudan next month.

Yet one hopes Ntseki’s side does not suffer in competitive matches for their attacking endeavours at the back as Shakes Mashaba’s side did, for example, at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea. Ntseki needs to find a delicate balance, and Bafana had to be helped early on by a couple of good saves from Ronwen Williams against Mali, while they were picked apart all too easily for Mali’s goal, and Erick Mathoho was fortunate after that not to concede a penalty.

Still, Bafana can go into the Ghana game full of confidence, and with a fairly settled squad who do appear to be given more freedom to express themselves under Ntseki. South Africa have cause for cautious optimism.

Another team with cause for cautious optimism, meanwhile, are Kaizer Chiefs, though if the comments sent into Phakaaathi are anything to go by, their fans do seem to be getting a little carried away with their 4-2 Shell Helix Cup win over Mamelodi Sundowns on the weekend. The Shell Helix Cup is not a proper trophy, and if Sundowns go on and win the Absa Premiership and go far in the Caf Champions League, it would be fair for Pitso Mosimane to regard this game as even more of an irrelevance.

Chiefs need to win a proper trophy before their fans can get any genuine bragging rights at all.