Steve Komphela has emerged as a surprise favourite to take over as caretaker-coach for Bafana Bafana following the resignation of Stuart Baxter on Friday.

The SA Football Association (Safa) cannot afford to leave the team without a coach at present considering that Bafana have two important 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers against Ghana and Sudan in November.

Bafana begin their qualification programme with a daunting trip to the Black Stars on November 11 and return home to host Sudan eight days later (November 19)‚ and planning for the two matches must begin in earnest by the caretaker-coach.

SowetanLIVE has learned that some members of the Safa Technical Committee headed by Jack Maluleka are in favour of current Lamontville Golden Arrows coach Komphela‚ who acted in a similar capacity in 2012 where he oversaw a win over Gabon and draw with Botswana.

The Technical Committee are going to propose the name of Molefi Ntseki as assistant caretaker-coach in their meeting on Saturday‚ which is to be attended by Maluleka‚ technical director Neil Tovey‚ legends head Buddha Mathathe and possibly president Danny Jordaan.

Maluleka declined to comment when pressed on their preferred candidate for the caretaker position but pointed out that he has always admired the work of Komphela‚ Bidvest Wits coach Gavin Hunt and Cape Town City boss Benni McCarthy.

“He [Komphela] is one of my favourite coaches in the country because he has proved to be one of the best technicians in South Africa‚” Maluleka said.

“Should it happen that he is one of the applicants and he is given the opportunity‚ I have no doubt that he will do better. He is one of the best coaches in SA.

“[Hunt] is also a good coach and good tactician and his record in the PSL speaks for itself.

“As for Benni‚ people are correct to say that he is one for the future. I also believe that he is a very good coach and I don’t think there will be many people who can argue against that.

“You can see that Benni is willing to grow and get better and I am sure that he will help South African football.

"There are a lot of coaches in South Africa who can add value and we can talk about them for the whole day.”

Maluleka went on to say that is it unfortunate that Baxter will not be at their meeting on Saturday to be interrogated on his report of what happened at the Afcon.

“What we are going to do is that we are going to sit in a meeting‚ but we won’t enjoy the opportunity to interrogate his report and him.

“Tomorrow [Saturday] we are going to take a decision to say whether we leave the person who is the assistant-coach [Ntseki] now to become the caretaker-coach‚ or we appoint a caretaker-coach.

“That is what should happen because the team cannot be left alone and we will be guided by the committee on how we proceeded.

“At the ultimate end‚ the recommendations of the technical committee will go to the NEC [national executive committee] for the final decision.”