Polokwane - With all the talk of Senegal’s dangermen ahead of their visit to take on Bafana Bafana in a 2018 World Cup qualifier at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on Saturday, it was only natural for the bulk of the questions to be around how coach Shakes Mashaba’s men - among them defender and captain Thulani Hlatshwayo - would deal with the threat.
The skipper gave a subdued answer, one that is probably good enough to make a decent sound bite or two about past matches (seven in total) between the two sides. But Mashaba refused to acknowledge the Senegal arsenal on his own turf. It was tricky to conclude whether the Bafana mentor was using this to boost his players’ confidence or whether he was just simply annoyed at the perception that South Africa were in for a torrid time on Saturday afternoon.
“I have heard so many times people saying we have never beaten Senegal,” said Mashaba. “Well, they have also never beaten us. We never project ourselves as lions (ironically, Senegal are nicknamed the Lions of Teranga) and my plea is to say I don’t know what makes them better than us when they also have not beaten us. Yes, we accept that they have very good players that they will bring - close to 10 players based abroad and most of them are commanding positions at the their clubs.”
Just for the record: in seven matches Senegal have beaten Bafana twice (not during Mashaba’s current tenure, however), played to four draws and lost once. And they are seen as favourites to be outright winners of Group D and qualify for the World Cup in Russia due to their most recent success, which includes being the only country with a 100 percent win ratio en route to next year’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Gabon.
“We played them twice in the Nelson Mandela Cup, beating them once and drawing in the other match. They never bring a makeshift team whenever they come here because they know what to expect,” the coach said, before expressing his disapproval on being asked what he knew of the opposition.
“That’s a dicey question,” said an irate Mashaba. “There is no way we can sit and say we are facing this team, but we will see them at 3pm on the day of the match. It is most unfortunate that you can plan for someone and on the day things are different. What do you do? Then people start saying you don’t have a Plan B. I still want to know what that means because you are using 11 players and can’t use more than three substitutes. We don’t wake up in the morning and say we will see what happens. Let me tell you, this is my third stint with the national team. I know what I am doing. We didn’t qualify for the Afcon and it has become a big thing in the country, especially for the doubting Thomases, but no-one gave us the glory when we qualified for the 2015 tournament after just two months into the job. We are appealing for fair comment and judgment from the media.”
When captain Hlatshwayo finally managed to get a word in, it was almost as if he had to choose his words carefully, making his answers rather timid.
“We pretty much know the kind of team we will come up against. We played them in Equatorial Guinea (a 1-1 draw in the Afcon group stages) and again last year. A lot has been said about them and nothing has been said about us, but we are able to match then when we play to our strengths and ability,” he said.
@superjourno
@extrastrongsa
The Star