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Shakes Mashaba will not take Bafana Bafana to the next level.
I have been tempted to say this for quite some time now. That’s because Mashaba seems to be way out of touch with the realities of modern football.
And unfortunately, he seems not to be prepared to move with the times and accept the fact that the sport has become a highly scrutinised science.
This was prompted by startling revelations this week of who Mashaba picked as his player to win the Fifa Ballon d’Or Footballer of the Year award.
Our esteemed coach is said to have voted for Cristiano Ronaldo as his first choice, followed by Chilean Arturo Vidal and then Ivorian Yaya Touré. The actual winner was, of course, Lionel Messi.
You see, national team coaches, captains and journalists are given an opportunity to vote for three players in their order of preference.
To put Mashaba’s Messi snub in perspective, the Argentinian and Barcelona player pooled 1 666 points worldwide, way ahead of all the other contenders.
Besides missing out on Messi, Mashaba only had runner-up Ronaldo in his sights, with no Neymar either, who ended up third.
If this had been a test, Mashaba would have scored 33%. But this is not the only indication of how out of touch he is.
Following an embarrassing 3-1 defeat to 111th-ranked Mauritania in September, Mashaba seemed surprised by what all the hullabaloo was about.
His response showed him up as not only arrogant, but ignorant and naive about the task at hand.
In case you missed it, here are some of his comments – as shown on diskifans.com – from his interview with Metro FM’s Robert Marawa:
On overseas-based players: “We assess the players in camp … there is no ruling which says if you bring a player from Europe he has to play!”
On monitoring overseas players:
“Won’t it be a waste of money if I fly overseas to monitor a player … we monitor the players overseas from media statistics.”
On Bafana Bafana’s video analyst and their monitoring of the opposition:
“Our video analyst did nothing … we didn’t have videos of Mauritania … It’s an internal problem … we never sent anyone to monitor Mauritania.”
On goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune saying they had used Google to find information on Mauritania:
“Was Khune using Google for himself, or for the team, or what? Khune didn’t do it on behalf of my team … I’m disturbed hearing you [Robert Marawa] talking about my captain using Google.”
On whether he owes the nation an apology for the beating:
“Apology for what … didn’t this team ever lose? … Did the people expect it never to lose?”
Really? And these are just some of his blunders.
Others include Mashaba telling us of his shopping spree while the team was in trouble, and bringing his son along to press conferences, where he interjected as journalists asked questions.
Bafana Bafana will soon be going through tough qualifiers for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.
And following the Fifa World Cup draw in June, they will restart their quest to be in Russia in 2018.
Of the other 19 countries going into the hat for that draw – only Libya, Gabon, Morocco and Burkina Faso have poorer world rankings than 74th-placed South Africa.
The countries are Gabon (77), Zambia (67), Uganda (62), DR Congo (60), Morocco (76), Guinea (49), Libya (81), Cameroon (57), Ghana (33), Nigeria (66), Congo (48), Egypt (58), Ivory Coast (19), Tunisia (40), Burkina Faso (89), Algeria (28), Cape Verde (39), Senegal (45) and Mali (63).
The only way I can describe our team’s road to Russia is by the Setswana phrase “tsela di mmitlwa”, meaning the road is littered with thorns.
Unless he changes his attitude to the team, football and the nation, I’m afraid Mashaba is going nowhere, fast.
Follow me on Twitter @Sbu_Mseleku
