Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Young talent must be identified far earlier
Bafana assistant coach Senong outlines vision for SA football
BEFORE the start of his third Bafana Bafana tenure, coach Shakes Mashaba roped in Thabo Senong as his assistant to compliment his old-school methods.
While Mashaba is more of a traditionalist with a great belief in hard work and discipline, he brought in Senong to help with the modern training techniques required to take the team to the next level.
So far, the two have worked brilliantly together, with Mashaba also giving Senong the freedom to run a few training sessions. And the players have responded well to the former Orlando Pirates youth coach.
Senong is a student of the game, and is hungry for knowledge He has completed the highest Safa level coaching courses, as well the worldrenowned KNVB Dutch coaching course. He also worked for Patrick Viera’s Diambars Football Academy, for two years as a youth coach.
However, his other job as the head coach of the South African Under-20 team is to fast-track talented young players into national set-up so that they can be comfortable when they are thrown in at the deep end at international level.
“It’s about the progress and the development of football in South Africa,” Senong told Independent Newspapers.
“So basically my biggest responsibility is to make sure that all the best talent is recommended to the national youth structures, to make sure that our teams get into major tournaments like the African Youth champs, the Olympics and the junior youth World Cups.
“My other role is to try and prepare young players for the national team structures. Because that is how players like Benni McCarthy, Matthew Booth and Quinton Fortune became great players, because they were fast-tracked into the senior national team at an early age. And that enhanced their maturity.
“When we bring in players like Rivaldo Coetzee and Fagrie Lakay into the national team structures, it is to fast-track their youth. Without youth there is no future, and we believe the future of South African football, especially Bafana Bafana, depends on the young players coming through,” Senong added.
Senong and Safa’s main mission is to try and identify talented players a lot earlier.
South African players of the last decade have peaked and matured around the ages of 25 and 26, while internationally the average age of a player being ready for top-class football is between 19 and 22.
The best players in the world mature even earlier than that, as the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo already showed their worth when they were teenagers.
“The main problem why our players peak so late in their careers is because we source them very late. We start developing them at the ages of 12, 13, 15, which is already very late,” Senong said.
“It should be done at five, six years old. From there they get an opportunity to complete their golden phase, and at the age of 14 they have to start doing tactics and play competitive football. So by the time they are 17 years old they are ready to play professional football, and be ready to go for trials abroad and secure good contracts.
“The sooner we start ... the successful countries in the world like Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil and Argentina start early with their development.
“Our PSL clubs and our academies still start at Under15 level, so that is too late already, because the player must then have been in the system for 10 years already. So we need to start at Under-7, Under9. The sooner we do that, the player will play at a higher level at an earlier age.”
Senong believes that South African football must adopt a singular style of playing in all regions, so that players can easily adapt to life in the national set-up.
But he believes that players should also be given the freedom to express themselves, and let their natural South African instincts take over, especially in the final third of the pitch.
“I’m not a selfish person. The first thing what I try to do is respect the characteristics of the South African player. The South African player has a lot of natural creativity and skill, and they have got pace and are mobile,” Senong said.
“I believe in giving players tactical freedom in the right areas. I believe in build-ups from the back and in a very good passing game on the ground and combination play.
“South African players have the characteristics of those in Brazil and Spain, and we need to give them the freedom to apply their dribbling skills and be creative.”
But Brazil and Spain, though, have a handful of World Cup titles between them and yet Bafana Bafana haven’t qualified for the global showpiece outside of South Africa since 2002.
But Senong believes that there are quality players out there, because if they can get organised in the provinces they could unearth some real gems.
“For us to get quality players – we have a huge population – we just need to accelerate the coaching education,” he said.
“All coaches need to be licenced and educated, teachers that are working as coaches should be licenced and educated.
“Once that is fast-tracked, we will know that our talent has been touched by people who understand the game.”