Johannesburg – Shakes Mashaba put on a brave face after his boss, Safa president Danny Jordaan, hinted that his days as Bafana Bafana coach might be numbered.
Jordaan, who has constantly backed Mashaba amid widespread criticism, said on national television he was disappointed by what he witnessed in the 1-1 draw with Mauritania at Mbombela Stadium on Friday night.
He continued to say that what he saw shouldn’t be the start of a journey but the end of it.
“I wouldn’t want to comment on what the president said. I didn’t hear him,” Mashaba said.
“I don’t want to speculate but what I would say is that we are all passing in this football. We aren’t permanent here. That (being fired) can happen at any time. But for now, I am still confident. I am achieving more than any other person who has coached Bafana Bafana.”
Mashaba mixed facts with fiction in his post-mortem of Bafana’s 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifying campaign that died prematurely.
He rightfully pointed out that the team’s struggles in front of goal was a national problem, with foreigners dominating the scoring charts in the domestic league.
But he described their uninspired performance against minnows Mauritania as a good display.Bafana couldn’t score against a team that had their second-choice goalkeeper in the second half after the first-choice was injured, while they were awarded a penalty that Thamsanqa Gabuza missed, and couldn’t make the most of their one-man advantage in the last 14 minutes.
“I would have loved to qualify (for the Afcon),” Mashaba said.
“Most unfortunately, people are hammering me on not qualifying. Nobody speaks about my first two months in charge when we qualified for Equatorial Guinea (for the 2015 Afcon). Nobody says anything about that.“We hammer on the negatives. That’s what makes me believe that I can still qualify for the (2018) World Cup.
“It’s not the end of the world. There are things you can’t discuss publicly on why we didn’t qualify. We need to sit down with the technical committee and iron out those things.”
Mashaba’s tone when he mentioned speaking with the technical committee sounded defeatist, like a man who has resigned himself to the possibility that he could be axed. But he bounced back to remind his detractors what he had done in the different South African national teams he has managed.
“I have never failed to qualify for a tournament (before), be it with the Under-17s, Under-20s, Under-23s or the senior national team,” Mashaba said.“This is the first time. Most fortunately I am still in another tournament. I am saying that, yes, we didn’t qualify for Gabon but this can serve as a morale-booster to qualify for the World Cup and go forward.
”He is confident the team can qualify for the World Cup – where they start with a trip to Burkina Faso early next month in a group that includes Senegal and Cape Verde – but Mashaba wouldn’t say why he is confident.
He also failed to explain why this team struggle at home. In the six qualifying matches under him, for the 2015 and 2017 Afcons, Bafana won only one match – against Sudan in Durban in the 2015 qualifiers.
They drew the other five, four of which ended goalless. They didn’t win a single game in these qualifiers at home and scored only one goal.“I have been confident since I was appointed,” Mashaba said.
“We are on course. We are looking forward to qualifying for Russia 2018.
“With the kind of performances we are putting, there is only one problem and I haven’t heard anyone saying, ‘how are we going to solve the scoring problem?’”
– The Sunday Independent
NOT SO HOT: Bafana’s Sibusiso Vilakazi, left, is challenged by Dialo Guideye of Mauritania during their Afcon qualifier. Picture: Mashaba’s days numbered, Jordaan hints