Johannesburg – The problem with numbers – even though they don’t lie – is the fact that they don’t tell the whole story.
Take the most worrying statistic of all in South African football. There are only two players, Kamohelo Mokotjo and Thulani Hlatshwayo, who have represented the country in all age groups right up to Bafana Bafana level. This is made worse by those 25- to 27-year-olds who make their international debut at Bafana Bafana without having ever represented any junior national team.
That screams of a failed system where they were overlooked in their early years or were players who took too long to mature, made worse by structures where some professional club’s development programmes only start at under-17 level ... very late.
“There are many contributing factors to that, especially with the social challenges that we have,” Bafana Bafana assistant coach and national U-20 coach Thabo Senong said. “You find that a player excels at a young age, he signs a lucrative contract and loses focus. It’s hard for some parents to control those kids, especially if they are the only breadwinners because if they rain on their parade that could stop the much-needed money coming to the parent.”
Those who make it past their social challenges have to fight with a situation where coaches are reluctant to give young talent a chance.
Those who manage to bypass that and are regulars at clubs have to deal with a situation where a player can be a star at U-17 level but not progress to the U-20s because the coach there is looking for something else.
Safa have eliminated that with a good chain from U-17 up to Bafana Bafana. Molefi Ntseki, who coaches Amajimbos, is the assistant coach to Senong, who leads Amajita. The two are Owen da Gama’s assistants at the U-23 level, while Da Gama and Senong assist Shakes Mashaba in the senior national team.
“I have to applaud Safa for coming up with that policy,” Ntseki said. “That has helped us in coming up with a style and a proper framework of what a player needs to do to get to the senior national team. The good thing is that we are flexible.
“Take Patrick Mayo, for instance. He was never in any development set-up but was identified through the provincial tournaments and when we went to the World Cup he was one of our best players.”
Another good thing that has changed is that the junior national team coaches are development mentors. Ntseki and Senong are assisted by Kwanele Kopo and David Notoane. The results have been good with the U-17s playing in the World Cup for the first time and the U-20s playing in the African Youth Championship, while the U-23s qualified for Rio. But among those U-23s, there were only two players who graduated from the Amajita that played in Senegal earlier this year.
“The selection was based purely on form and game time,” Senong said. “We also looked at the type of opponents that we would be facing. Eighty-five percent of those U-20 players are in the U-23 set-up. They have to earn their call-up.”
If that chain is fixed, the country will move away from celebrating qualifying for major tournaments and look instead to challenging for honours once they are there.