ARMCHAIR CRITIC: BAFANA ARE LIKE PSYCHOLOGICALLY- WOUNDED SOLDIERS

Bafana Bafana squad that represent South Africa at the AFCON in Morocco photo supplied

In the 1980s German pop music group Alphaville released a haunting, end-of-days, eschatological, Armageddon-like song the lyrics of which urged anyone who cared to listen to hope for the best while expecting the worst because death is certain.

Part of the lyrics go like this:

“Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies/ Hoping for the best but expecting the worst/ Are you gonna drop the bomb or not”

“Let us die young or let us live forever/ We don’t have the power but we never say never/Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip, the music’s for the sad man.”

These lyrics came to mind when I consider that Bafana Bafana will eventually be knocked out of the Worl Cup tournament sooner or later.

Bu be that as it may, they must not dwell on their eventual elimination but must instead play to the best of their abilities and see how far they can go in the tournament.

My dear readers, it is my honest opinion that Bafana Bafana are like psychologically-wounded soldiers at the moment.

They resemble soldiers who have seen “the worst of the worst;” soldiers who have seen their comrades fall in battle; at the hands of the enemy; soldiers who have been betrayed by their own comrades; and worst of all, they are like soldiers who have seen their own general sabotaging their battle plans and giving intelligence information to the enemy.

Now on top of all that, they are like soldiers who have seen the selfsame treacherous army general shooting several of their comrades dead in broad daylight for no apparent reason.

The general in question here is the South African Football Association as a whole and team manager Vincent Tseka in particular.

The atrocities committed by Tseka and SAFA against the Bafana team over the past few months will surely have a negative psychological impact on the team and these atrocities include failure to secure training grounds and hotel accommodation for the team right here at home during the qualifying matches and friendly games related to the 2026 World Cup tournament.

The Tebogo Mokoena yellow card saga which led to the team being docked three points is also another debilitating matter during Bafana’s World Cup qualification process.

This is a clear indication that team manager Vincent Tseka and SAFA don’t give a damn about Bafana and are actually bent on sabotaging and weakening them physically and mentally ahead of the World Cup tournament.

The debacle regarding travel visas to Mexico, which led to Bafana travelling in drips and drabs instead of travelling together as a team at the same time, surely has a negative psychological impact on the team and is very frustrating indeed.

The players would surely be forgiven if they were adopt the mindset that goes “nobody cares, why should we care?”

And all these above-mentioned atrocities lead one to ask whether the issue of salaries for the players has been sorted because many a times and often, stories have emerged revealing Bafana players’ unhappiness about remuneration at prestigious tournaments like the World Cup.

But even if Bafana are psychologically-wounded, they must pick themselves up, dust themselves off and shoot to kill like real soldiers do.

And talking about shooting, my opinion is that we don’t have enough fire-power upfront as our strikers behave like care- givers who take care of fragile old people instead of being ruthless like soldiers who must kill the enemy at all costs.

Our strikers are goal-shy; they are like soldiers who are afraid to shoot and kill the enemy in case the enemy will retaliate by killing more of them than they have managed to kill.

The World Cup tournament is not a place to negotiate a ceasefire or truce by opting for defensive tactics that won’t hurt the enemy.

And players like Messi will kill you you if you lie back and defend while the score is at 0-O.

Now it is unfathomable that a lame-footed striker like Lyle Foster who missed a penalty against palookas Nicaragua in a recent friendly game for Bafana has been roped into the Bafana set-up.

For the record, Lyle Foster’s team called Burnly FC, has been relegated from the English Premiership League and Foster has managed to score only three times in 38 matches for his team Burnly FC this season.

And for Bafana Bafana Lyle Foster has managed to score 10 times in six years, and when one applies “the law of averages” this means Foster has managed to score only two goals for each year he has represented Bafana and no goals at all for one year that he has represented Bafana Bafana.

His goal against Jamaica a few days ago in the friendly match is nothing special as even a grandmom from A3 in Mamelodi West would have scored from that position.

Now why did coach Hugo Broos take along this “non-goal scorer”Lyle Foster to the World Cup?

Be that as it may I have a feeling that Thapelo Maseko who was not given game-time at Sundowns and had to leave the team for greener pastures, will do exceptionally well at the 2026 World Cup and prove his former coach at Sundowns Cardoso wrong.

Our hopes as enthusiastic soccer-loving South Africans are on Relebogile Mofokeng, Tebogo Mokoena , TLB Mbokazi and Thapelo Maseko to carry us through to the next round of the tournament.