Johannesbrug - As Shakes Mashaba closes in on two years since his appointment as Bafana Bafana coach, he will no doubt look back at his tenure so far with mixed feelings.
From qualifying at a canter for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea to hobbling along until eventually failing to guarantee their place in next year’s edition, Mashaba will feel he took five steps forward and then 10 in the opposite direction.
Over the past couple of weeks, however, the national team coach has been full of remorse and appears to have been humbled by a disastrous qualifying campaign that included a 3-1 hammering away to lowly Mauritania after admitting to “not doing our homework”.
Bafana woke up too late as they produced their biggest away victory to date – and first win in the group – when they beat Gambia 4-0 at the Independence Stadium in Bakau last weekend in their penultimate Afcon qualifier.Mashaba told reporters shortly after landing at OR Tambo Airport on Monday that he, along with his technical staff, had learnt some valuable lessons.
Few now hope meaningless rants about the Bafana selection criteria, questions about whether the coach has analysed the opposition and if the grass is synthetic or not will be a thing of the past ahead of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) yesterday announced that Bafana would be in Pot 3 along with Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea and Congo.
They will not be seeded when the draw is conducted in Cairo, Egypt on June 24, meaning they will be pitted against one of the top five countries in the continent, a list that includes Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia.
Mashaba was given two mandates when he replaced Gordon Igesund as coach in July 2014 and has already botched the first one. But there can be no excuses in the coach attempting to guide Bafana to Russia, and plans for the road to Moscow begin in earnest tomorrow at Safa House, where a low-key technical committee meeting has been scheduled to map the way forward.
The coach will do well to communicate his intentions without being vague before the World Cup qualifiers kick-off in October. During a forgettable display in the 2015 Afcon qualifiers, Mashaba often left the media’s interpretation of his preparations run wild as he gave very little information away - proof that there was probably little to disclose anyway when pertinent questions were asked, and this was evidenced by results against Gambia in the opening qualifier, followed by the Nouakchott debacle and the back-to-back draws against Cameroon.
But Mashaba hasn’t been defiant, and this has perhaps won him a fraction of support from fans and some members of the technical committee alike. His admission that Bafana could have come unstuck because of their poor preparation has ruffled some feathers, particularly that of Safa chief executive Dennis Mumble, who said he will ask the coach to explain what he meant.
However, this could also help improve logistics prior to the next away qualifiers on the road to Russia to try and set him up for success. Anything but a ticket to Moscow should come with significant consequences.
@superjourno
Independent Media