Durban - For over 20 years South African men’s football has been nothing but disappointment.
So depressed have the fans been that they have learnt ways of celebrating mediocrity, keeping hope in the face of repeated failure. We often overestimate talent and kindle false hope with the rare moment of happiness every now and then such as Sundowns’ triumph in the CAF Champions League in 2016.
While we still celebrate Sundowns’ 2016 success in Africa’s premier club competition, it’s a blemish that despite having the richest and most supported domestic league in Africa, only two South African clubs have ever won the continental competition (Orlando Pirates in 1995 and Sundowns in 2016).
Our national team Bafana Bafana have not qualified for a World Cup competitively since 2002. We got admission into the 2010 World Cup as hosts and even then embarrassed ourselves by becoming the first host nation to not progress beyond the first round of the competition.
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Had we been required to qualify competitively for the 2010 World Cup, we might not have been in that tournament. We did not qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Angola that same year and what’s more, we have failed to qualify for three Afcons since 2010.
The three times that we did qualify for the event, we did not progress further than the quarter-finals.
These failures alone suggest that there are serious problems in South African football which are structural. The worst part is that there has been no sense of accountability from anyone for the failure. Important structures have remained intact as Bafana Bafana progressed from failure to failure. There have been several coaching changes in that time but when deep structural issues are prevalent, coaches can only bring superficial changes.
Had recent Afcon-winning coach Aliou Cissé or even Pep Guardiola been coaching Bafana Bafana, it’s unlikely that they would have been able to do anything extraordinary with the national men’s team.
After the US failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the president of US Soccer Federation Sunil Gulati opted not to run for re-election. At the time of Gulati’s departure, he had been in charge of US Soccer for 12 years. He could have easily tried for the presidency again by raving about his past successes such as helping the US reach an all-time high 4 in the Fifa rankings in 2006 and overseeing US Soccer while the domestic league in the US and popularity of the game in general improved immensely.
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He chose not to, thus taking responsibility for the failure that the US men’s soccer team experienced.
In 2020, Gulati’s successor Carlos Cordeiro ended up resigning after criticism over his attitudes towards the US women’s soccer team who have historically outcompeted their male counterparts.
The culture of accountability is one that is clearly paying dividends in the US. Prior to Gulati resigning,
the US struggled to churn out male players for the biggest clubs in the world. Today, they are on the ascendency and ranked 13th in the world with several players in Europe and notably Christian Pulisic playing for Chelsea, Serginio Dest for Barcelona and Weston Mckennie for Juventus.
If the US men’s team can do it, surely we can? By watching the American Major League Soccer (MLS), it’s safe to say that the average player in the American top flight is not much better than the average player in the South African top flight. There are some gem players in the MLS but the majority of South African professional footballers would be able to hold their own and many would even shine, had they been playing in the US.
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Amidst South Africa’s perennial failures in soccer, the one bright spark throughout that time has been coach Pitso Mosimane. With respect to celebrated South African tactical minds, “Jingles” is by far the best tactician that the country has produced. He proved what South African soccer can achieve without being fickle as he won a record five Premiership titles during his eight-year stint with Mamelodi Sundowns from 2012-2020.
Sundowns reaped the rewards of not being fickle and persisting with Mosimane and now co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi for almost 10 years. They are now significantly structurally better than every other team in the top flight, including their two rivals from Soweto who have chopped and changed coaches several times since.
Some will say that Mosimane only achieved his successes because he coached the Patrice Motsepe-owned and resource rich Masandawana but the truth is that he showcased his tactical genius before that in a six-year stint with Supersport United from 2001-2007.
Mosimane led the modest Matsatsantsa to the Nedbank Cup in 2005 and then SAA Super Eight in 2004. It was he who laid the foundations for Gavin Hunt to win three successive titles with Matsatsantsa from 20072010.
After winning everything that there is to win in SA football, Mosimane joined Egyptian giants Al Ahly. He has led the club to two successive CAF Champions League titles though he still needs to lead the club to the Egyptian Premier League.
Mosimane has not only won over admirers in Africa. New York Times chief correspondent Rory Smith has described him as one of the best tacticians in the world, something most South Africans would hesitate to do as it’s been ingrained in us that our tacticians are not on par with their South American and European counterparts.
Mosimane has done well so far in the high pressure and trigger happy Al Ahly environment. Should he remain in charge of the club beyond October, he will be the club’s first tactician to last more than two years at the club since Manuel Jose ended his first stint with the club in 2009 which lasted over five years.
@EshlinV