TUESDAY night’s shock 2-1 defeat to Zimbabwe has sent under-fire Bafana coach Gordon Igesund’s plans into disarray and left no room for experiments.
The national team mentor called the performance “disjointed” and of a “low level”, and has now vowed to only call up the big guns.
This is a U-turn on his promise to take risks with a new breed of players after Bafana’s loss to the Warriors at Orlando Stadium. Igesund slated his locally based players for a poor performance and had harsh words for the inexperienced members.
South Africa ended a year of agony on the international stage with the defeat to Zimbabwe – just three days after failing to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil next year despite beating Botswana 4-1 in Durban.
In the build-up to the clash against the Warriors, Igesund stressed he was ready to “produce future champions” by fielding what would possibly be the new Bafana.
But having seen his players struggle against Zimbabwe, who fielded the bulk of their South African-based stars including goalscorers Knowledge Musona and Cuthbert Malajila, Igesund has backpedalled.
“I will tell you what I am going to do from now on. As soon as we start playing our next friendly matches, I am going to call up all the experienced players, including those based overseas, and then throw in one or two youngsters.
“Tonight I feel sorry for my players. I really threw them in the deep end. The level was low and just not good enough. We were disjointed throughout the match,” said Igesund in his post-match comments.
The coach had hinted at leaving out the over-30s for Bafana’s upcoming games.
However, as Igesund looks to start on a clean slate ahead of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco – and possibly qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia if he is still in the hot seat – the old guard are far from being shown the door.
“After a game like this, you can see that some players have a lot of work to do.
“If you compare how a player like Zungu played against Botswana coming off the bench and how he did against Zimbabwe having started, you can see his level dropped and he never improved,” said Igesund.
“Zungu should be one of our star players going into 2015 and the World Cup in Russia, but he won’t improve playing against this lot right now. When he has Kagisho Dikgacoi and Dean Furman around to carry him, then he is brilliant.”
Igesund is a known admirer of the tried and tested but was willing to move out of his comfort zone in an attempt to look ahead.
Only Bernard Parker kept his place in the starting lineup on Tuesday after the coach made wholesale changes to the team that beat Botswana.
“I wanted to be genuine and see what we have, but we really had no imagination and there was nothing in it for us in the match.
“I now know who is not good enough for this team and I will encourage some of these players to keep doing well for their clubs.
“If I wanted to protect myself, I would never have allowed the overseas-based players to go back. But I only asked Darren Keet to stay so we can see him. For me, the likes of Ayanda Patosi and Kamohelo Mokotjo are at a much higher level than the guys we had for this match and those are the players I will be calling up in future,” Igesund said, adding “we need older players now to lead the way.”