Celebrating short-term achievements

Eish…. watching a game (Bafana Bafana vs. Egypt) with couple of my friends was a mission!

I watched the game, tried to concentrate, but going to fetch a Heineken now and then in my cooler bag was stress free…

I yawned a couple of times and my other friend hit me at the back of my head on regular intervals just so I do not sleep.

Nna gents I am for attacking, entertaining football and what was displayed by Bafana on Saturday night was the opposite… at the death, when Katlego Mphela scored.

I was surprised to see people shouting and screaming, as if we have won a Macufe Cup, eish I was not because I know that we won against a team that was not at its best… lemme tell ya’ll this now, and you can frame my statement.

Egypt will whip our asses by more than 2 goals on the return match, and they will do so convincingly… and I am sure most of ya’ll will tell me “bottom line is we won, we got 3 points so what”

But I know deep down that we, South Africans, celebrate mediocrisity, we celebrate short-term achievements, even if they are not significant. We may have 7 points, a point or 2 away from qualifying for the AFCON 2012… but what is the bigger picture?

I bet you a lot of teams, even the so-called minnows, do not fear Bafana currently; Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, all know that they can take on Bafana any day even though they’re not as well supported, financially and otherwise.

Egypt knew that chances of beating us were 80%... even in our backyard, and if you watched the game you’d have seen by they way they attacked compared to SA… now to me, that is the sign of a powerhouse and that is where I believe we should be as a soccer playing nation, with the resources and talent we have.

We have 2014 coming up, are we streamlining the young guns with that in mind because I would think if we want to aim big and achieve big things, we would play these boys against top opposition like Egypt… anyway, IT IS MY OPINION AND I HAVE ALWAYS AND WILL STICK BY IT until I see our boys moving in that direction.

Like someone said, the Pitso Mosimane’s of this world will call 23 or even 50 players for squad games, but 99% of the usual suspects will play… the new, talented young guns will come collect cheques and never experience or get to play against the Mohamed Aboutrika’s of this world.

Remember, the former and 2 other experienced Egyptian players (who won them cups) even started at the bench… what does that tell you about ‘vision’… my 2 cents worth… you do not have to personally attack me tu assomblief.

By Prince Mawela