The Bafana Bafana Thread

Electric said:
The best schools have soccer teams.
What the hell are you even on about.
Do you think soccer is just ignored in this country?
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At youth level, yes. It is why results such as last night's one, happen.

Bafana do not have the technique or footballing intelligence to match Brazil. Beating Spain was a triumph in coaching tactics, but against skilled individuals that play with freedom- no chance.
 
That is not the fault of the school though.
I can tell you that many schools have top level soccer teams.
It's when they move to national level that things fall apart, possibly at varisty level as well.
 
Electric said:
That is not the fault of the school though.
I can tell you that many schools have top level soccer teams.
It's when they move to national level that things fall apart, possibly at varisty level as well.
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Agreed. Applying the model that rugby uses, to football, is a false dichotomy.
 
Electric said:
The best schools have soccer teams.
What the hell are you even on about.
Do you think soccer is just ignored in this country?
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Many don't and some specifically ban it.

SAFA fails through not using it's youth teams. This leads to untested players for Bafana.

Rugby and cricket have it easy though. They only have to look for players at maybe 50 schools.
 
cr@zydude said:
Many don't and some specifically ban it.

SAFA fails through not using it's youth teams. This leads to untested players for Bafana.

Rugby and cricket have it easy though. They only have to look for players at maybe 50 schools.
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They created their model around this sort of thing, because government couldn't give a toss about the sports. Football has not, specifically here, for a number of reasons, mostly related to government interference.

Look at the models in Europe- footballing academies created by the footballing association and the top leagues incumbent to that association, not shunting the responsibility to the school system.
 
Exactly; club football is there for a reason.
And if you don't believe football still gets high priority in many schools then you're jaded.
A close friend of my son was head hunted in PE for his soccer skill.
He is 13.
 
Electric said:
Exactly; club football is there for a reason.
And if you don't believe football still gets high priority in many schools then you're jaded.
A close friend of my son was head hunted in PE for his soccer skill.
He is 13.
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Club football works better in Europe, but almost all sport there is club based. Schools play a big part in SA.

SAFA fails for not using their youth teams, and having the academy fall apart.

PSL clubs fail for not having development structures or a youth league.

I maintain that many elite schools exclude football.

These are last year's top 20 rugby schools: Rugby 365

1. Paarl Gim
2. Affies
3. Outeniqua
4. Grey College of Bloemfontein
5. Dr EG Jansen
6. Paarl Boys' High
7. Waterkloof
8. Nelspruit
9. Garsfontein
10. Monument
11. Marlow
12. HTS Middelburg
13. Grey High of Port Elizabeth
14. St Andrew's College of Grahamstown
15. Glenwood
16. Oakdale
17. Die Brandwag
18. Bethlehem Voortrekker
19. Wynberg*
20. Paul Roos

Of them, the two in bold offer football, Wynberg offers girls football, and I assume that they also offer boys football. I am not sure about the four in italics. However the other 14, do not offer football.

I will try to do a similar list with 'richest' schools.
 
cr@zydude said:
Club football works better in Europe, but almost all sport there is club based. Schools play a big part in SA.

SAFA fails for not using their youth teams, and having the academy fall apart.

PSL clubs fail for not having development structures or a youth league.

I maintain that many elite schools exclude football.

These are last year's top 20 rugby schools: Rugby 365

1. Paarl Gim
2. Affies
3. Outeniqua
4. Grey College of Bloemfontein
5. Dr EG Jansen
6. Paarl Boys' High
7. Waterkloof
8. Nelspruit
9. Garsfontein
10. Monument
11. Marlow
12. HTS Middelburg
13. Grey High of Port Elizabeth
14. St Andrew's College of Grahamstown
15. Glenwood
16. Oakdale
17. Die Brandwag
18. Bethlehem Voortrekker
19. Wynberg*
20. Paul Roos

Of them, the two in bold offer football, Wynberg offers girls football, and I assume that they also offer boys football. I am not sure about the four in italics. However the other 14, do not offer football.

I will try to do a similar list with 'richest' schools.
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Yeah, again, this does not mean that schools need to copy the models used by cricket and rugby to obtain success.

Suggesting that top schools should have as entrenched a development structure for soccer as they do for rugby is a fallacy. You are restricting the talent pool to a group that may not have the requisite skills for the game. Look at the South American teams, or even many of the England squad, to see that talent is found in a variety of different social levels. Rugby and cricket require a smaller talent set to succeed with, than football does. You can't equate their development methods simply because they are both sport.

You also ignore that many of the top rugby teams in the country, have their own academies, or affiliate themselves with either school leagues (where they assist with the development of players) or smaller rugby clubs. On top of that, they teach a fundamental aspect that many forget- adequate coaching. One cannot expect future stars to be taught by people who don't have a clue as to what they are doing. Look at the amount of UEFA-licensed coaches in Germany, as an example, and why their youth and senior structures are thriving. Along with a number of other European nations that adopted the club and country model (Spain and Belgium, along with France before them, are further examples of this).

Schools play a part, yes, but not as large as you believe that they do. The failures are down to the local football clubs and the federation that governs them, end of. No amount of football being played in schools will fix this.
 
SAFA have failed when it comes to coaching. One of the big reasons that I push for schools, is finances. Most of SA's clubs are struggling along, and we have collapses every year. Chiefs, Pirates and Sundowns may have money, but the other teams, even in the PSL, struggle. The country's top schools have the money and stability.
 
Back in the day the south of Jo'burg had a vibrant football scene.

Linmeyer featured two of the South's most prominent clubs; Southern Suburbs & Linhill Celtic. Suburbs were a top-flight (old National Football League) football team for a period and finished runners-up on one occasion. My grandfather was Suburb's club secretary for a time before moving on to coach Celtic's youth teams. Then due to the South's large Portuguese community we had Sporting FC in Turffontein, Union as well as Lustitano FC, another pro-club that achieved success on a national level. Mondeor Meteors are another stalwart of football in Jo'burg at an amateur level, established in the 60's. Then there is also Robertsham Callies, another club that has been around for ages.

The driving force behind all these clubs was community during their hey-days of the 60s - 80s. My grandfather likened it to England, where even the tiniest of clubs down in the 4th/5th level of football could pull 1,000 people on a matchday when a larger, top-flight club from the same city was playing. It is not uncommon for the likes of Bury & Rochdale to draw 5,000 fans on a day when Manchester United and City are playing at home, yet they are all in the Greater Manchester area. He told me on a Saturday the community would stream to Suburbs for top-flight football and even Linhill Celtic (amateurs) could pull a few hundred people for a morning's games of age-group football. The same applied to the Portuguese clubs. There was huge interest in these clubs, both in terms of support and financial donations to kids wanting to play.

These clubs also drew scouts from bigger clubs, including the major ''black'' clubs at the time. My uncle, who was playing for Suburbs' U/19 side (Suburbs were no longer a pro-outfit), was scouted by Kaizer Chiefs.

However, nowadays, neither of the big clubs are what they used to be. Suburbs wound up as a football team in the late 80s/early 90s, Celtic is a disaster, if they are still in business at all (I played for them up until the mid-90s when they started going into serious decline). The big Portuguese community clubs (Sporting, Union & Lusitano) died/changed when the demographics of the South changed. My dad was friends with many Portuguese folks and by the late 80s/early 90s many left the area or went back to Portugal and those clubs suffered because what they were built on was pulled out from underneath them.

So yeah, there are many reasons for the decline in football, and one of them seems to be a cultural/social change. Coming from a family that has over 90-years of heritage in the South of Jo'burg, one of the aspects that my father and grandfather could point out is how the demographics and social make-up of many areas affected clubs and how people in these areas seemingly lost interest in the sport or at least in the clubs. It is wrong that it happened, but that is them apples.

As of today only Robersham Callies and Mondeor Meteors are thriving. I think Sporting, Union & Lusitano are still around, but they are shells of what they used to be. True, Jomo Cosmos is now the local big club but as my father points out, you cannot even begin to compare the appeal and support that Suburbs used to have to that of Cosmos'. Moroka Swallows occasionally play at the Rand Stadium, but again, there is no support for them. There is no community appeal around these clubs. It really is Chiefs & Pirates or nothing.

And then there was still the big boys of the North of Jo'burg with their deep pockets; Highlands Park (who utterly dominated the old NSL) and Berea Park. These clubs had enough cash to lure reputable foreign players of the 60s & 70s, driving up the quality of football.
 
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And football also used to have provincial trials and tournaments, similar to Craven Week, where you could represent your province. My uncle earned Southern Transvaal colours and turned out for them. I'm not sure if they do this anymore.

So yeah, one can say schools don't do enough or maybe club academies are shot, but in the past schools were not being relied upon. I can only account for the Jo'burg region, but it seemed like there were vibrant hotbeds of development-level, community-driven football that professional clubs were using to harvest talent but you just don't see that anymore.

Even though they are still doing okay, Mondeor Meteors and Roberstham Callies literally have to beg for age-group players in local papers whereas in the past my dad tells me that the kids were all pilling in and you could field up to 3 age group teams in all brackets (U-11 A, B & C sides). It is as if nobody is interested anymore.
 
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Government won't probe Bafana match-fixing allegations

SAFA has welcomed government's decision not to appoint a commission of inquiry into match-fixing allegations. :erm:

In November last year, the chairman of Fifa's ethics committee said it had moved ahead with its own investigation because the South African government had not yet set up an inquiry -- seven months after it had agreed to do so, and over three years after the matches in question.

Fifa had found strong evidence that friendlies played in the host country just weeks ahead of the 2010 World Cup were fixed, with allegations that the matches were manipulated by referees working for illegal Asian betting syndicates.
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Link.
 
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Dismantle Bafana Bafana

Sports and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula has picked Andile Jali (23), Bongani Zungu (21), Ayanda Patosi (21) and Dean Furman (25) as players around whom a new Bafana Bafana team must be built.
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Brazil went through a rebuilding process after their dismal performance at the 2010 World Cup, discarding some big names including Kaká and Robinho.

Mbalula thinks Bafana should follow the same approach.

“The Bafana Bafana team must be dismantled and refurbished around the young players I have mentioned,” he said.

“Some players have overstayed their welcome in the national team.”

He said some players have been in the Bafana setup for a long time despite achieving nothing, and they must be discarded.

He said coach Gordon Igesund should have followed Brazil’s example a long time ago.

“This is where Gordon lost it,” he said. “He came with the same attitude and started to look for stars throughout the world, leaving boys who are talented here. He must stop selecting players on the basis of which teams they play for and which agent they belong to. We are going nowhere with that attitude.”

SA Football Association president Danny Jordaan agrees. “If anything should be learnt from the game, it is a lack of progression.
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Link.
 
“This is where Gordon lost it,” he said. “He came with the same attitude and started to look for stars throughout the world, leaving boys who are talented here. He must stop selecting players on the basis of which teams they play for and which agent they belong to. We are going nowhere with that attitude.”
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Igesund gets the sack?
 
thestaggy said:
Igesund gets the sack?
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The problem with Igesund is that he doesn't believe in the youth. He believes in experience. He has been doing it since Manning Rangers days.

Any player above 25 should not be selected (except the gk). We need to build for 2018+
 
thestaggy said:
Igesund gets the sack?
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Where is that quote from?

SAFA would be foolish to fire him now. His contract lapses in June and then they will be rid of him.

Fuma said:
The problem with Igesund is that he doesn't believe in the youth. He believes in experience. He has been doing it since Manning Rangers days.

Any player above 25 should not be selected (except the gk). We need to build for 2018+
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His Moroka Swallows team was also extremely old. One of the biggest issues is that we don't use our youth teams. Our U23 side hasn't played since 2011!

SAFA only gets teams together for qualifiers, and then wonders why they fail. We also don't have an U19 league to help get the best players playing at a high level.
 
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Starting XIs, match about to kick off:

Australia: Ryan, Franjic, McGowan, Wilkinson, Davidson, Holland, Milligan, Troisi, Oar, Cahill, Leckie.

South Africa: Meyiwa, Ngcongca, Nthethe, Mathoho, Mokeke, Phala, Kekana, Letsholonyane, Patosi, Serero, Rantie.

Coverage on SABC1 and for those at work, use Kickoff.com
 
Ayanda Patosi scores to put us 1-0 up.

And Tim Cahill scores straight from the restart to make it 1-1.
 
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