PSL players Reneilwe Letsholonyane (left, Kaizer Chiefs) and Ayanda Gcaba (Free State Stars) put club rivalry aside to do it for new-look Bafana Bafana.
My last column on Bafana Bafana in December had raised hopes that South African football authorities would treat the start of 2012 as “Year Zero” – a year in which all previous successes and failures are forgotten in favour of approaching the affairs of the national affair with a new, positive attitude.
How mistaken I and other commentators were as the football leaders welcomed the new year with the same destructive spirit that has reduced SA football to a laughing stock. By the end of 2011 plans had been secured to play three international friendlies with countries which would be participating in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.
The first game was against Equatorial Guinea on January 6. But even before the national team could fly to the central African country, which will co-host the Afcon, the cancer that has eroded all logic in the thinking of the local soccer bosses shown no signs of recession. The bulk of regular national players were prevented by their clubs from travelling with the national team. The clubs cited fatigue to the players as their reason.
A flimsy excuse if you ask me because the clubs – Mamelodi Sundowns, Golden Arrows and Orlando Pirates – knew about the plans for the match, and they never bothered to inform the national federation, Safa, about their intention. If their players needed a rest, how come other players from the same league managed to travel to fight for South Africa’s honour?
Perhaps if these clubs had notified the national team’s management in good time to ignore their players the situation would have saved the embarrassment that ensued when players were withdrawn after they were selected. What did Equatorial Guinea think of us when they heard of commotion in the camp of their guests? I am sure they just sighed and thought this is the reason why we are not a feature in Africa’s showpiece they are about to host.
I am especially disappointed in Pirates because next month they begin their Champions League campaign. Their players needed the Equatorial Guinea excursion for mental fine-tuning. Since winning the 1995 edition of the African club championship, the next generation of Pirates players and those of other PSL teams have significantly suffered from an acute form of psychological limitation in CAF contests.
We have had clubs as proud as Sundowns coming short in places like Reunion, which is better known as a holiday paradise than a fearsome football outpost. Have Sundowns now abandoned their ambition to conquer Africa, as was famously spelled out by their president Patrice Motsepe six years ago? If their players are tired to fight for their country, how do Motsepe and his technical team expect Sundowns players to raise the flag any higher in African club competition? It’s a shame.
As for Arrows only the soccer gods know what motivated their decision because as a modest team that they are they need opportunities like these ones to advance their agenda. Lack of ambition is clearly the downfall of South African football, and unfortunately players have to suffer for it. Having their players on the international stage would have invoked a new spirit in them, and that would have rubbed off the rest of the players in an average team like Arrows.
Once again, the events of the past week have showed that PSL clubs are not acting alone in restricting the fortunes of Bafana Bafana and other national teams. Safa had to chip in this early in 2012 by diluting the significance of the match-ups against Zambia (January 11, Johannesburg) and Zambia (January 14, Rustenburg).
How do we explain the stabbing of these two brilliant soccer nations in the back by changing the status of the two friendly internationals to practice matches. Is this what our guests asked for? Absolutely not, and there’s nothing they can do this late to change their mind about playing practice matches against another national team.
I hear Safa’s decision was influenced by the absence of certain players from the national team. Now, that’s where Safa falters. The absent players they are talking about have not achieved anything for the national team in the past two years. Their absence is actually a blessing because it presents the national team with a chance to try out new players, as a starting point towards rebuilding the team.
The mustn’t be any job security in the national team, the players who are there must do the job for the country. In fact, it is an insult to all those youngsters who acquitted themselves well in Equatorial Guinea. The bottom line is that Safa and its professional wing PSL do not want to take responsibility for the welfare of Bafana and the junior national teams.
Safa is now saying it was a blunder that they represented the country in the first place because if the federation was happy with their performance on January 6, how come they now doubt them against Zambia and Ghana? Clearly this is not the way to motivate players on the fringes of the national team, players who mean a lot for the future than the mediocrity we are used to.
All the players who were called deserves a chance on their own accord in the team, not under the guise of a practice match as if they were keeping the place warm for others who could not be part of the squad.
Personally I am looking forward to Bidvest Wits midfield enforcer Sibusiso Vilakazi quickly claiming his place in the Bafana Bafana set-up. No time must be waited to blood and nurture Vilakazi – he already plays the game at the intensity and thrust that is required at international level, not the pedestrian pace we often see with other PSL players.
In my book Vilakazi is one of early candidates for the PSL player of the season. Given his high work rate and consistency in the Bidvest Wits team, Vilakazi is one player his team would have wanted to protect from fatigue. But there he is with the national team, use him Pitso (Mosimane, national coach) and see what he can do for Bafana Bafana.
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