Month: February 2014

Former South African player Isaac ‘Shakes’ Kungwane has said that he is sure that manager Gordon Igesund is about to lose his job due to the impatient nature of the national football Association. South Africa are known to part with their coaches very soon if results do not improve.

South Africa were recently unable to progress into the latter stages of the African Nations championship, which is a tournament held for the locally-based players. South Africa were expected to dominate in this tournament after the recent World Cup 2014 gave them a lot of confidence.

However, they could not even reached the knockout stages of this tournament. There have also been allegations that the manager tried to influence players with aspects like bonuses during the tournament. It is expected that Igesund will clear his name over these allegations. However, he may not be the South African manager for too long according to Kungwane. He has also criticised the quickfire policy of the football Association by saying that any manager needs time to implement his ideas.

South Africa also failed to do well at the 2010 World Cup despite being the host. Kungwane says that sacking managers alone is not the solution to the problem. He wants the youth coaches to change their mentality as well.

“There have been a lot of news headlines that he even tried to influence player bonuses, so I think it is going to be difficult for him to stay on. As we all know, Safa are trigger happy, so I don’t see him retaining his job. The problem is that we are so impatient. Even in our PSL [Premier Soccer League], we can’t play a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old because of the coaches in this country. They are so scared of losing that [player] they even resort to playing negative football,” said Kungwane.

South Africa’s national team manager Gordon Igesund has said that he is confident that his team will be able to get past Nigeria when the two sides meet each other in the African nations championship.

This tournament, which is held only for the local players, is a prestigious tournament in Africa. South Africa will head into this match leading the table with four points. However, their lead is mainly due to the better goal difference and they would want to take a win from this match in order to retain this spot in the table.

Mozambique are bottom of the table after having not taken any points so far. Nigeria’s national team won the African cup of nations recently, but it is thought that South Africa are stronger in this tournament due to the better quality of local players. Igesund says that he will not play for a draw in this match given the strength of the opponents. He has always taken to matches with a winning attitude and this will not change for this encounter.

Igesund also believes that previous history between the two teams does not account to anything for this encounter, which will be won or lost on the pitch.

Nigeria recently beat South Africa 2-0, but Igesund recalled that South Africa largely fielded a reserve team consisting of the locally based players.

“Playing for a draw is a dangerous thing for any team to do. You have to go out and play to win. My philosophy has always been to play to win. But when you start thinking about trying to play for a draw then you are doing the wrong thing and you end up making incorrect decisions. I cannot compromise my principles which are to win every match – if the other team scores three then you score four,” says Igesund.