Ex-players slam Bafana
2006-01-27 07:14
Johannesburg - Mark Fish says he and other former South Africa stars should choose the next coach of the disgraced national football team.
He was reacting to a 2-0 defeat by Tunisia on Thursday which eliminated Bafana Bafana from the 2006 African Nations Cup in Egypt in the first round without securing a point or scoring a goal.
The contract of caretaker coach Ted Dumitru expires after the Nations Cup and the 2010 World Cup hosts are expected to name a successor by March with former England manager Terry Venables among more than 50 applicants.
Dumitru, a 69-year-old Romanian who won back-to-back national league titles with Mamelodi Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs, took charge last November when Englishman Stuart Baxter quit following a nine-match winless run.
South Africa showed marginal improvement against Tunisia after a heartless 2-0 loss to Guinea on Sunday in their opening Group C match, but only pride will be at stake when they play fellow strugglers Zambia in their final fixture.
Fish was a central defender when hosts South Africa beat Tunisia in the 1996 final just four years after the country returned to international football following three decades of racism-induced isolation.
"Members of the 1996 team like captain Neil Tovey, Doctor Khumalo, Philemon Masinga, Lucas Radebe and myself should choose the next coach," he said after watching Tunisia outplay Bafana in Alexandria.
"We rarely looked like scoring and lacked any cutting edge. Why do our defenders always back off when under pressure and allow opponents space and time to shoot?" asked Fish.
Youth development
Tovey warned that South Africa, ranked eighth in Africa this month by world football governing body Fifa, would slide even further unless youth development was taken seriously.
"There are several blueprints lying around at the headquarters of the national football association and the time has come to implement one. We have got to teach young South Africans the proper basics," he stressed.
"Our defence was woeful against Tunisia resulting in our midfielders being far too negative because they did not trust those behind them. Good teams like ours in 1996 are built from the back.
"We were told Tunisia would be slow and heavy and lack enterprise. Well, you could have fooled me. They stroked the ball around superbly and displayed lots of creativity," added Tovey.
Doctor Khumalo, a popular creative midfielder in the Nations Cup-winning squad, was equally critical, saying Bafana never performed as a unit against Tunisia and lacked character.
"I saw individuals, but no team. We had to defeat the Tunisians to stay in contention, but there was no sense of urgency, no backbone. There is so much that needs to be done."
After winning the 1996 title, South Africa finished second in 1998, third in 2000, reached the quarter-finals in 2002 and were eliminated in the first round two years ago after a 4-0 hiding from Nigeria in Tunisia.