Men's national team far less motivated than women's team
SA must stop encouraging Bafana mediocrity
While South Africans are still mourning Bafana Bafana’s failure to qualify for next year’s Africa Cup Of Nations and contemplating who will replace the sacked Molefi Ntseki as head coach, there is an issue that has been bothering me for some time now.
When Bafana play their Afcon and Fifa World Cup qualifiers, we give them the mandate that they should just qualify for the tournament. We are merely satisfied with the team qualifying for these soccer showpieces. We set the bar so low for our national senior men’s soccer team that we do not require them to compete strongly in these competitions. Qualification is enough for us!
As a football-loving nation we should stop celebrating qualification for a tournament and start expecting more from them. We should call on S A to not just qualify but to compete at these tournaments and fight tooth-and-nail to advance at least to the last four of the Afcon and knockout stages of the World Cup.
When one looks at recent performances of Bafana and Banyana Banyana at their respective continental tournaments, it is evident that Banyana are going there on a mission to contest and win the whole thing, unlike their male counterparts who are content with qualification.
In the past seven Africa Women Cup of Nations, Banyana have reached the semifinals every time, being runners-up three times while Bafana did not qualify for four of the past seven Afcons, reached the quarterfinals on two occasions and were knocked out in the group stages in the other one.
It goes without saying that SA’s national women’s football team does not go to a tournament just to make up the numbers. They go there with one mindset — and that is to win.
It should be nations like Comoros, whose population is 150,000 less than that of Soweto, and not SA, which should be over the moon and jumping over tables when they qualify for Afcon, like they did when they made it to Cameroon 2021, a first in their footballing history.
It is high time South Africans stop celebrating Bafana’s mediocrity in simply qualifying and start challenging them to redouble their efforts and go to future Afcons with the aim of competing and winning the ultimate prize.
Here are the performances of both of the nation’s senior football teams in their past seven Africa Cup of Nations:
Bafana Bafana
2010: Did not qualify
2012: Did not qualify
2013: Quarterfinals
2015: Group stages
2017: Did not qualify
2019: Quarterfinals
2021: Did not qualify
Banyana Banyana
2006: Third place
2008: Runners-up
2010: Third place
2012 Runners-up
2014: Fourth place
2016: Fourth place
2018: Runners-up