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There is only one accolade missing from Shakes Mashaba’s CV – qualifying for the World Cup.
And that is what the Bafana Bafana coach will be aiming for.
“The World Cup is the rooftop, and it is not a question of thinking whether I want it or not. I am looking forward to qualifying. Even if I qualify today and die tomorrow, I’d be happy that I would have reached my objectives. I am well aware it is not going to be easy, but this is a good start,” said Mashaba.
To date, qualifying for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games ranks high on his list of achievements.
But that is one accolade among many. He qualified the national Under-20s for their Fifa World Cup in Malaysia in 1997 by finishing second at the CAF African Youth Championship in Morocco that year.
He has also qualified Bafana for two Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) – in 2004 and this year – and also won the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup in 2004.
Mashaba’s team won the Zone Six Under-20 games in Zambia in 2012.
In 2013, Amajita won the Cosafa Under-20 Championship in Lesotho under Mashaba.
After beating Angola 4-1 on aggregate, South Africa is now among the 20 African nations that have qualified for the third and final round of the Confederation of African Football’s Russia 2018 qualifiers, but they will have to wait until June to find out who their opponents will be.
The 20 teams will be drawn into five groups of four teams. They will then play round robin home-and-away matches, after which the five group winners will qualify for the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia.
For now, Mashaba will be able to enjoy a peaceful festive season, knowing a tough year awaits him.
Mashaba has described 2015 as a good year for his team.
“We achieved almost what we wanted to and I believe we are on the right course. It would be important to keep up the momentum and continuity in terms of our performances.”
This is despite not doing well at the Afcon in Equatorial Guinea earlier this year, failing to reach the finals of the African Nations Championship in Rwanda next year and also bombing out of the Cosafa Cup.
Bafana have not had the best of starts to their 2017 Afcon qualifiers – losing one and drawing one – and are stuck at the bottom of their group.
But after back-to-back victories over Angola in their World Cup qualifier, Mashaba was optimistic about the future. He said there had been improvement in his team.
Bafana will next take to the field again for Afcon qualifiers in back-to-back games against group-topping Cameroon in March before a trip to Gambia in June, and then hosting Mauritania in September.
It’s a tall order, but Mashaba believes they can do it. “It seems impossible until it’s done. Nothing can stop us beating Cameroon twice, nothing can stop us reversing the Mauritania result; anything is possible. Mauritania – they’ll pay dearly for what they did,” he said this week.
He said the players were aware of the challenges to come. “We all know that if we don’t do well we will have to wait for another four years for the next qualifiers, and some of us won’t be around then.”
