Usually, a visiting team from elsewhere in Africa is an unknown quantity for local supporters but this time round it is the South African national side, which plays tomorrow in the Cosafa Cup, that carries an air of mystery about it.
Coach Ephraim Mashaba’s selections for the Southern African championship, which is being hosted in the North West province, mean there is little clarity on how this latest version of Bafana Bafana will line up.
South Africa meet neighbours Botswana at the quarterfinal stage at the Moruleng Stadium at 5.30pm tomorrow.
While the other regional national teams are using the two-week event at Moruleng and the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace as an opportunity to hone their teams before next month’s start of both the 2017 African Nations Cup qualifiers and the CHAN- 2016 preliminaries, South Africa have taken the route of using the matches to look at fringe and potential future players.
Mashaba is handicapped by the refusal of some Premier Soccer League clubs to release their players for matches outside of the Fifa calendar, which dictates dates on which clubs must give up players for national team duty. Also, the need for many key players to rest after a long season is crucial.
But with the Nations Cup qualifier against Gambia coming up on June 13 and a CHAN qualifier against Mauritius the following week, he would have been better advised to pick as strong a team as he possibly could, even despite the lack of co-operation from clubs.
Instead, choosing for the squad several players who have not even played a single game in the PSL puts at risk the country’s chances in a competition that South Africa is hosting.
Botswana, by contrast, will be at full strength with several PSL-based players in their squad.
“We want to make an impact and we want to show people that we can compete against the bigger, more fancied team and better funded teams.
“We will be no pushovers,” warned coach Peter Butler, a former English professional who has been in the job for the last 16 months.
His primary task has been to refresh an ageing Botswana squad and to prove competitive in the upcoming Nations Cup and 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
Defeat for one of the sides will not mean the end of participation but rather dropping down to a plate competition and another match on Wednesday.
The winner advances to Thursday’s semifinal.
A meeting between Namibia and holders Zambia precedes the Botswana-South Africa quarterfinal tomorrow while on Monday at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace, Malawi play Mozambique and guest team Ghana also make their entrance. — See page 32
SA are ‘a closed book’
Coach Ephraim Mashaba’s selections for the Southern African championship, which is being hosted in the North West province, mean there is little clarity on how this latest version of Bafana Bafana will line up.
South Africa meet neighbours Botswana at the quarterfinal stage at the Moruleng Stadium at 5.30pm tomorrow.
While the other regional national teams are using the two-week event at Moruleng and the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace as an opportunity to hone their teams before next month’s start of both the 2017 African Nations Cup qualifiers and the CHAN- 2016 preliminaries, South Africa have taken the route of using the matches to look at fringe and potential future players.
Mashaba is handicapped by the refusal of some Premier Soccer League clubs to release their players for matches outside of the Fifa calendar, which dictates dates on which clubs must give up players for national team duty. Also, the need for many key players to rest after a long season is crucial.
But with the Nations Cup qualifier against Gambia coming up on June 13 and a CHAN qualifier against Mauritius the following week, he would have been better advised to pick as strong a team as he possibly could, even despite the lack of co-operation from clubs.
Instead, choosing for the squad several players who have not even played a single game in the PSL puts at risk the country’s chances in a competition that South Africa is hosting.
Botswana, by contrast, will be at full strength with several PSL-based players in their squad.
“We want to make an impact and we want to show people that we can compete against the bigger, more fancied team and better funded teams.
“We will be no pushovers,” warned coach Peter Butler, a former English professional who has been in the job for the last 16 months.
His primary task has been to refresh an ageing Botswana squad and to prove competitive in the upcoming Nations Cup and 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
Defeat for one of the sides will not mean the end of participation but rather dropping down to a plate competition and another match on Wednesday.
The winner advances to Thursday’s semifinal.
A meeting between Namibia and holders Zambia precedes the Botswana-South Africa quarterfinal tomorrow while on Monday at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace, Malawi play Mozambique and guest team Ghana also make their entrance. — See page 32
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