Learning from past masters

Crisis? What crisis? There is nothing much wrong with South African football according to SAFA headquarters, anyway. However, Bafana Bafana did not qualify for the 2012 African Nations Cup and the national under-20s fell short of a World Cup spot after being knocked out in the group phase of the African Youth championship earlier in 2011. The national under 23-team were also knocked out of the African under-23 championship, failing to qualify for the 2012 Olympics.

The president of the South African Football Association, Kirsten Nematandani, denied that there was any crisis, and said that the association will hold a national technical conference during the Nations Cup in January, where they will call on former strikers and experts to have their say at the conference.

At the conference, the association will map a way forward for the country’s football. They will look as to what is not right, and if needed, they will call on Fifa for help, a defiant Nematandani said.

There is little doubt that the South African Football Association has missed a golden opportunity to benefit from the momentum created by the Soccer World Cup and to use the wave of optimism from this golden event to make substantial progress.

Instead, the association stuttered from one failure to the next. One example was the fact that they have had three chief executive officers since then.

The national team failed to qualify after it became evident that the national association and the BafanaBafana coach did not sufficiently study the fine print of the qualifying process.

The national team has often bemoaned the lack of high quality strikers in the country.

The question is: what are you going to do about the problem.

Perhaps Nematandani should learn from past masters.

One example is the Springbok rugby team. They have won the Rugby World Cup twice since 1995, a strike rate of 40%, and finished third in 1999. Perhaps a discussion with Francois Pienaar, John Smit or Jake White could be a good starting point.

Or what about a visit to the sanctuary of Blue Bulls rugby, Loftus Versfeld, where Heyneke Meyer, director of rugby, would be willing to explain how the Bulls won the Super 14-title in 2007, 2009 and 2010. Remember it is a tournament in which fourteen of the powerhouse franchises of arguably the three finest rugby countries in the world, participate.

Meyer, when faced with a dilemma on the lack of sharp shooting prowess in the Bulls camp, invited the goal kicker who nursed Jonny Wilkinson and helped him to become the best in the world to mentor Morné Steyn, and other sharpshooters. Currently they have Vlok Cilliers to assist the goal kickers.

Meyer left no stone unturned in his quest for zero defect.

South Africa possess some of the sharpest sporting brains in the business, and people like Morne du Plessis, Tim Noakes and White could provide the South African Football Association with a forum of expertise that could assist the soccer people of this country in becoming a true soccer heavyweight of the continent again.

Perhaps they should also include the management of Orlando Pirates in that forum of discussion.

Orlando Pirates finally won the Telkom Knockout for the first time, defeating Bidvest Wits 3-1 at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Saturday night.

After suffering six previous heartbreaks in finals in this competition, the Buccaneers finally added the trophy to their bulging cabinet that already has two MTN8 titles, the Absa Premiership and the Nedbank Cup from the last 14 months or so.

Bucs are the first team in PSL history to hold every PSL-sanctioned trophy at the same time.

Bucs surged ahead early though Thulasizwe Mbuyane, Sifiso Myeni made it 1-1 20 minutes into the second half, but the Soweto side finished strongly with goals from Daine Klate and Isaac Chansa in the final 20 minutes.

Although Wits would complain because of the lack of composure at the back and woeful defending in the final twenty minutes, that goal by Chansa was a magnificent example of real fluency in attack and superb interplay between midfielders and strikers.

One of the stars of the final was Benni McCarthy, who created several opportunities for his own right foot and for his co-attackers during this match.

What the performance by Pirates has confirmed, is that the Buccaneers have resurrected their Absa PSL-season, and unless they implode badly, they will be one of the frontrunners at the end of the season.

But let’s just get back to the strange view by Nematandani that there is no crisis in South African soccer.

One columnist of the Sunday Times was blunt in his summary of the past two weeks, saying that what Nematandani and his mandarins have confirmed that the more things change at the South African Football Association, the more they stay the same.

What is needed is the acknowledgement that there is a crisis, to make bold moves and to think out of the box.

If the expertize is available, and you fail to tap into it, you are a fool trying your utmost to protect your own little empire, but you are doing it at your own peril and at the expense of South African football.