Ephraim Mashaba has had a huge headache in recent days

South African manager Ephraim Mashaba has had a huge headache in recent days due to the lack of availability of training sessions and players ahead of the crucial match with Mauritius.

South Africa take on Mauritius in the 2016 Chan qualifiers. This is the preliminary round with South Africa aiming to reach the group stages without fail. The game against Mauritius could be a potential banana skin especially due to the recent developments.Mashaba had to contend with the withdrawal of as much as 10 players ahead of the game. Clubs like Kaizer Chiefs decided to recall their players just ahead of this game.

This meant thatMashaba had to cancel the last few training sessions due to the lack of players. The manager has tried to balance the situation by bringing players from the likes of Platinum Stars and M. Tigers. Bloemfontein Celtic are also expected to provide one more, which would bring the tally to 18 for the time being. Right now, South African do not have the sufficient number of players to even fill the bench. The disruption to the preparation could not have come at a much worse time forMashaba, as he had seen his team only get used to playing with each other under his tactics.

“It doesn’t matter who you play for or against, preparation is very crucial. Normally the day before the match we hold our practice session at the match venue where we are given about an hour, and there is not much you can do in that time, so we had to change the venue so we can have as much time to train as we want. But the flip side is that it is just 24 hours before a match so you also can’t over train – we had to try and find a balance,” said Mashaba.