sky sports football Article

South African soccer is without a doubt one of the most enigmatic (and ultimately infuriating) setups in the world today.

When one considers that “Bafana Bafana” is easily one of the best supported (financially) in the continent and we have been quite happy to splash out millions of Rands on the world’s most expensive coach, one would worry a bit that we STILL can’t deliver the goods on the field.

Bear in mind that in 2 years time we are hosting the premier tournament (the 2010 World Cup) and we aren’t even able to qualify for the African Nations Cup, then you know we are in trouble.

Since winning the African Nations Cup a couple of years back, we simply seem to have lost direction. More and more money is being pumped into the domestic game and few administrators blinked twice when we announced the millions of Rands South Africa was going to pay to hire Parreira. Now a few months into his tenure he decided he had better things to do and left Bafana Bafana in the capable hands of his mate Joel Santana. Yet we STILL look like we are running around like headless chickens and you wonder what it is that we are trying to achieve.

We have the money and we largely seem to have the players, yet we can’t consistently perform on the park? Obviously we’re short a decent striker without Benni McCarthy, but for us to be this far off the pace, is worrying.

There is a lot of talk about the “Culture” of African or South African which I don’t totally understand because many of the players literally don’t seem to have a clue about what’s happening when they get on the park. There is a lack of structure or discipline and this “culture” that supposedly involves 1 guy dribbling the ball

all the way from his own defence passed 10 international players and then scoring is pie in the sky. Yes we have skillful players but if the opposition can read them like a book – then this style / structure is never going to work.

The administrators in the game need to take some decisions now about where SA is headed. The recent draw at home that has pretty much eliminated us from the African Nations Cup is a horrific result that does our credibility and international image no good. Everybody involved in soccer needs to start drawing up some realistic goals and markers in terms of performance. If you fail to meet the criteria in terms of qualifying for tournaments or in terms of how you play on the park, then you need to be penalised.

Too many “airy fairy” goalposts are being setup for players and administrators in South African soccer and it is showing in the way we perform on the park.