On what went wrong – Bafana has never been the same!
In this week’s column, I’ve decided to deviate a little bit from the regular format because there is something I would really like to address sooner than later. I want to look at the importance of participating in continental football or the importance of having a good team or squad to represent our country in the Afcon or at the World Cup. Firstly, let’s outline certain important conditions or important points in terms of what does it take to be in the national team or to coach the national team? You are being selected based on your performances, form and capabilities, according to the coach’s opinion or views. The coach is the only one who will be able to select those he thinks would fit his philosophy. Now, if we were to dissect it from the beginning, where are we coming from? We come from an isolation, we come from a disabled country that was not allowed or supposed to be playing against any nation because of the apartheid regime. Fast-forward to 1992 and we were given an opportunity to test our strength against any country in the world.
When all this started, we didn’t understand, or we didn’t have an experience on how to assemble a national team or how could we be like the other national teams and operate accordingly. We crumbled in our first few international games. Yes, we might have won our first international game against Cameroon and also, based on the kind of players that were selected, the kind of performances that they gave and all the hard work behind the scenes, looked promising for the future. Sitting here now, I think it was more of players that were doing well in their respective teams that were called up. Also how the then coach, Screamer Tshabalala, assembled a team that was so balanced between ‘Shoeshine and Piano’ and tough soldiers that would go to war, was very important and played a significant role in how our team performed.
