We don't care about Jali. We care about Bafana.

Like the situation when a naughty child does not act in the expected manner and is then sent into the naughty corner, national team coach Gordon Igesund (otherwise known as GI) has sent Orlando Pirates midfield general, Andile Jali, into the Bafana Bafana wilderness.

 

The naughty child has been sent into a dark corner to think about his transgressions and his acts of disobedience. This has been quite a lengthy punishment. The child is not wailing for attention but the silence is deafening from both parent and child. Nobody seems to know how long this punishment will last. Some of the Pirates fans neighbours seem to feel the punishment is too harsh and suspicions of abuse are abound. The bystanders (Swallows fans, like myself) are merely concerned with a positive end to the story and the growth and development of the child. It appears that SAFA the social services department has been alerted to the situation but feel the parent is handling the situation well. The other obedient children of the Bafana family have – like obedient kids should behave – not voiced their concerns, maybe for fear of similar punishment. Even the prodigal son, Benni McCarthy, has kept his mouth quiet, appearing to have learnt from a previous experience with his broer Moneeb Josephs.

To bring things back to the football field, one thing that cannot be denied is the fact that Andile Jali is one of the best players in the Premier Soccer League. He has been an instrumental part of the treble-winning Pirates sides (as my fellow Bucs tweeps keep reminding us all) and still, potentially, has plenty of years available to play for the national squad and maybe abroad. How
ever, his arrogance and, ahem, “inappropriate” behaviour off the field seems to have soured the relationship with the current Bafana Bafana head coach resulting in the player still being overlooked for the forthcoming World Cup qualifier against Central African Republic.


Jali has been consistently overlooked by Igesund for Bafana matches, which most of the public see as a form of punishment for quotes such as the following quote found in an interview in the Soccerladuma newspaper in October 2012:


“I care about my team where i get paid every month. I work for my team and I don't work for the national team”

In this particular interview, the words “I don't care” are repeated a number of times. The interview painted a picture of an arrogant, stubborn man and could have – and probably was – viewed as disrespectful by Igesund and his assistants. To the average soccer fan, the interview painted a picture of a player who he would be doing the national or the national coach a favour by playing for Bafana - like it was a privilege to have Andile Jali in your team (well, at least that's how I took it).

The only person in SA football who knows the truth is Andile Jali. He has been punished, and punished for quite a long time. But I believe it is now time that our father who art in Nasrec forgive Andile, the same way that he was willing to forgive (and have coffee) with Steven. It is time for Ntate Igesund to reach out his hand, show the young boy the way forward, whisper sweet nothings while singing the comforting words that he is “once, twice, three times” a player (just to keep up with the treble theme), and move forward together as a Bafana family. We will need all hands on deck if we are to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. South Africa is already at “itchy bum” stage regarding the state of our qualification campaign.

Winning, in the end, is what the average supporter cares about. He/she does not care about punishments. He/she does not care about egos. And he/she does not care about how many kids of wedlock a particular player has. He cares about winning or about “reclaiming the glory” (hello there, Khosis). The same applies for SAFA.

Based on my knowledge of South African football, when results are not forthcoming, the coach will end up going especially when it involves the exclusion of certain fan-favourites. Whether it takes a formal apology from Jali, some initiative from Igesund, or a special intervention from SAFA (fixing relationships not fixing anything else), at this point, personally, “I don't care'. 

I care about the best local coach we have staying in job, using all the resources available and I care about seeing one of the best local talents progress and shine for Bafana.  That is what's good for Bafana.

We, the fans, don't care about the drama behind the scenes. We don't care about Jali. We simply care about Bafana Bafana.

Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter @Tom_18Yards

AFCON ticket mess Part 1

I had planned on writing a “happy new” blog post to get the year off to the right start but thanks to EQ Tickets and the people behind the organizing of AFCON (African Cup of Nations 2013) tickets, I am not  a very happy chappy at the moment.


In my possession at this moment in time are double tickets that I have purchased for the AFCON Final, one group game, and one quarterfinal match.  One thing, however, is missing (no, not a glass of Bell’s whiskey).




What’s missing is a pair of tickets that I waited in line for two days in a row and handed over R230 for the AFCON 2013 opening game on the 19th of January.


Apparently, my cellphone number is not loaded on the system for those tickets. I can confirm this because I watched the process as the friendly Spar lady worked her magic on the computer, inputting my cell phone details and then following up with my ID number. The process ended with  ID number  NOT matching with the reference  number I had given (yes, the same reference number I see on my receipt and the same reference number I see on the text message received from the AFCON 2013 ticket organization).


After trying endlessly and even trying to substitute a “4” on my ID with “6” – hoping that maybe somebody put in the wrong details – nothing worked.


At that moment I was getting extremely irritated at the fact that a process that should have taken no more than a few minutes, now had me repeatedly telling the Spar lady my ID number and cell number and repeatedly ending up being unsuccessful in obtaining the match tickets for which I have already paid for into my hands. To rub salt into the wound, I was probably one of the first people to purchase tickets as I paid for these items on the 27^th September 2012 (see picture below for confirmation).


By the way, I only purchased my tickets on the second day after tickets officially went on sale purely because the system “jammed” on the first day as we the supporters stood in line for hours for no ultimate gain.

Anyways, back to the story, I then proceeded to call the EQ Tickets AFCON 2013 call centre – I saw this number on the largely useless (to fans who run into trouble) EQ Tickets website.  I unfortunately ran out of the remaining airtime credit I had before somebody at EQ Tickts could answer. I wasted money simply holding, and holding, and holding and… well, you get the point by now.


I then purchased R29 airtime, specifically to deal with this problem at hand. I was kept holding for quite a long time and eventually when somebody answered; unfortunately for me, the man on the other side could not hear me, at all. So, I called yet again and was kept holding until the little remaining airtime was done. (Time really flies when you’re angry!)


At this point, the anger inside of me was boiling over as I had gone through a series of activities that ended up wasting my time, money, and effort, all in vain, in the hope of simply obtaining information on AFCON tickets that I paid my hard-earned money for.


I then bought R110 worth of airtime (Spar must be rolling in the money if this is happening nationwide). Yet again, I was kept holding for quite a while but this time somebody finally answered, a lady by the name of Vanessa. She sounded friendly as I told her my sad story; I gave her my ID number to check for my tickets on the system, and to my shock, she said the system only has six tickets under that specific ID number (double tickets to the three matches specified earlier).  I thought to myself,  “Maybe that lady at Spar did not enter my ID number correctly. She then checked the system for tickets under my cell phone number, and inexplicably, she still only saw SIX tickets registered under my cell phone number. This made absolutely no sense to me at that moment. There is no logical way to explain how this can happen.


Think about this: If I only bought six tickets according to EQ Tickets, then why did I get a reference number sent to my cell phone number? This is the exact same reference number printed on my receipt dated 27 September  2012?  How is it that I bought all of my tickets from the same Spar store, on the same day, with (obviously) the same ID number, and same cell number yet two tickets somehow don’t appear under my name?


Vanessa proceeded to tell me that she will contact her supervisor about this “weird” situation and that I should expect a call from her supervisor.  She could not specify to me how long I would have to wait for this phone call after I asked her for his information. At the moment, the wait continues.


As I write this piece, it has been more than 48 hours since my incident and since I spent over R100 calling EQ tickets. The supervisor that “Vanessa” said would contact me, well, simply hasn’t. After waiting for more than 24 hours for this call from the mysterious supervisor, I decided to send EQ Tickets an email to the address shown on my receipt . I am yet to receive a reply or at the very least some sort of acknowledgment of my complaint.


I have also persistently used social networks to get in contact with anybody who might be connected in anyway to the powers that be at EQ tickets (thank you to the tweeps who also helped out, special mention to @sangxa and @Blackbucs).  I tagged people such as @Eqtickets_store (Eqtickets_concept), @NativeRhythms,  (Sipho Sithole), and  @eQTickets (EQTickets who as I type have a whopping 27 followers). I also tagged @robmarawa (award-winning radio and TV personality Robert Marawa) in some of my complaints so that these issues could be discussed on air on his radio show.


The less said about the 45 minutes of the show that I managed to listen to later that day (7 January), the better. The best part least frustrating part of the interview was when the interviewee replied to a question with the words, “I dont know the answer to that.”  That at least made sense, unlike the finger-pointing session that laid blame onto government and even CAF for, ahem, under-performance in certain areas. I also did not hear any reasonable justification from the interviewee for using EQ tickets and the less-accessible “selected” Spar stores.


So two days after my unsuccessful mission to My Spar I returned yet again on the 9^th of January – ten days before kickoff (somebody say Ayoba!) – foolishly hoping that my tickets would magically reappear on the system under my ID number. How foolish of me. The situation remained the same. I actually even ran into somebody else experiencing the exact same problem. This man even claims that he contacted the call centre and they assured him that the problem had been fixed after he had previously tried to collect his tickets a few days earlier without success.


Needless to say, I was not feeling so “super” as I left this Spar store.
 
One hopes that the best is yet to come.
 
Thomas Monyepao
Do follow me on twitter for more football talk and please be aware my latest blogs will appear here from now on.

Tough times for the 2012 MTN8 Champions

Whilst many South African football bloggers and journalists have their focus on analysing the problems plaguing a certain Chloorkop-based club, I would prefer to rather focus on the current state of affairs at Moroka Swallows.


The 2012 MTN8 champions are currently going through a poor run of form and will be thankful for this week’s FIFA international break.


The recent poor run includes two home draws a Telkom Knockout cup loss (albeit on penalties), and a disappointing away loss to Bidvest Wits. Their last win came over a month ago – a rather fortunate win against Steve Khompela’s Free State Stars team.


What exactly has contributed to this poor run of form?

Firstly, the loss of key men has contributed to their inconsistency. In the past two games, the Birds have been missing Luvhengo Mungomeni in the backline. The Birds already have a growing reputation for having a leaky defence, and the loss of the form Mamelodi Sundowns man was bound to make the team significantly weaker. In the two matches in which he has been missing, Swallows gained a solitary point from a possible six.


With Mungomeni missing in action, due to the lack of adequate defensive cover, Coach Zeca Marques decided to deploy the Venda boy with a melanin deficiency, Giorgi Nergadze, in Mungomeni’s usual role. Through no lack of effort, but operating with the turning speed of an oil tanker, Nergadze has not been anywhere near the rock solid partner that Marques, would have preferred to partner the robust Ashraf Hendricks.


Swallows are also still suffering from the loss last season’s top goal-scorer, the influential Siyabonga “Bhele” Nomvethe. Many will quickly point out that Katlego Mashego has stepped into Nomvethe’s boots without breaking a sweat, however – in playing the versatile Mashego upfront – Marques lost out on the opportunity of having an extra option on the left to compete with Bennett Chenene (whose performances have dropped severely in recent times) while also resulting in Swallows losing an experienced consistent goal-getter who would feast upon the chances that the team are currently wasting.


This brings me to the second reason for this poor run: wastefulness at the front and carelessness at the back.


The seemingly ageless Dikgang “Terminator” Mabalane, for example, missed two absolute sitters within the space of two weeks against both Leopards and Chippa United at a point in the game where Swallows could have sealed three points had those opportunities been taken.


These were games that the Birds completely dominated but somehow ended up settling for a total of only two point, leaving the man known as Majazana, Zeca Marques, feeling rather frustrated.


Greg Etafia’s penchant for leaving the post which he is meant to be guarding and his peculiar fondness to standing behind the wall during the opposing team’s free-kick, has recently left many of the Swallows faithful quite frustrated. A schoolboy error by Etafia directly contributed to Leopards’ second goal. This basic goalkeeping error cost the team a valuable two points in a game that Swallows deserved nothing less than the maximum. Against Sundowns in the MTN8 semifinal, a similar error did not prove to be as crucial but nonetheless exasperating.


In the recent draw with Chippa United, Etafia decided to leave his near post open like gates of heaven, thereby gifting the ambitious Chilli Boys, Chippa United, an equalizer from what seemed to be a near-impossible angle to score from.


Lastly, Zeca Marques also contributed his fair share to the recent loss of point. Against Bidvest Wits, Majazana replaced left-winger, Bennet Chenene, for the rather one-footed Felix Obada. With the right-footed Obada being played in an unfamiliar role on the left, the 23-year-old looked terribly uncomfortable, wasted a lot of possession, and provided hardly any decent service for Mashego to work with.


One can’t help but feel for Obada as the player literally ran his socks off, but Marques pretty much ended any hopes of snatching a result against Wits with that ill-advised change.


In the final part of the game against Chippa – attempting to shut the back door – Marques, took off Mpho Maleka for Sibusiso Khumalo, and moved Lerato Chabangu into the striker role. However, if Marques saw no problem in moving Chabangu further up later on in the game, then clearly Majazana is aware of the skills possessed by the man who has previously earned Bafana Bafana caps playing as a striker. In this game, Marques deviated from the norm, and played what looked more like a 4-1-4-1 formation. Had Marques stuck to the usual 4-2-3-1 formation instead, Swallows would only have required the use of one creative midfielder (in this case David Mathebula).


This system would have eliminated the need to play the ineffective Maleka upfront and Marques could have rather chosen either the experienced Macbeth Sibaya or Sibusiso Khumalo to help Lefa Tsutsulupa in the middle.


Swallows’ next game is against table-toppers, Kaizer Chiefs. Swallows will motivated by the fact that in this season’s previous Soweto Derby, the Dube Birds gave reigning PSL champions, Orlando Pirates, a 3-0 walloping.


However, should the Birds fail to get a positive result in this fixture, Swallows will probably drop out of the top half of the PSL log and the pressure will start mounting on Zeca Marques who – despite bringing silverware to the club – is yet to win over many of the Birds faithful.


Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter  and read as I vent my anger and take off my jacket like Majazana.

This post originally appeared on the onetwo.co.za site on the 14th of November 2012.

Don't buy target men, dont buy!

The target man upfront is the guy that most South African soccer fans (unlike the English) love to hate, and absolutely hate to love. Like rain in the summer, he is sometimes described as a necessary evil, at best.

Often providing an outlet upfront for long ball-playing defenders lacking in the confidence to provide incisive passes or deep runs into the pitch, or acting as the side-kick for the short, nippy little fella in a classic 4-4-2 - or modernized 4-4-1-1 - the target man is necessary to provide balance and ensure the system works efficiently but rarely offers an enjoyable experience for the South African viewer.

I happened to be at the Orlando Pirates versus Ajax Cape Town game at Orlando stadium on Tuesday night and calmly sat and observed many of the Pirates faithful booing and heckling the new Pirates signing, Takesure Chinyama, even before the Bucs substitute had managed to get a touch of the ball. All of this changed after Takesure - you’ve got to love that name - provided a great finish to a neatly worked goal. The “supporters” all left the stadium mimicking his winding up celebration.  All seemed to have been forgotten.

Having also watched the recent Kaizer Chiefs games against Wits University and Premier Soccer League rookies Chippa United, I noticed how the crowd was getting on the back of Kingston Nkhatha, The Glamour Boys’off-season signing who plays up front as the sidekick in the ongoing Bernard Parker show. 

Nkhatha enjoyed a relatively good start with two goals in his opening two league games. But, as is the rule for target men in the local game, as soon as the goals dry up, the fans put their hands up and the substitution sign can be seen all over the stands. Just ask big Philemon Masinga – boo-boys favourite and the man responsible for scoring that great World-Cup qualifying goal against Congo in 1997. Had Siphiwe Tshabala not scored THAT goal in the 2010 World Cup, we would still be forced to watch replays of that thunderous strike every time the national broadcaster plans to show a major soccer event.

The boo-boys' favourite,Philemon "Chippa" Masinga, in his prime

It almost seems like the target man is seen as the antithesis of the flashy diski “style”.  This is the guy that rarely, if ever, provides an exciting step-over, or a tsamaya that provides our friends at Supersport Football with thrilling highlights-reel material.  

The local game is full of short, nippy players full of pace, skill and whole wardrobe full of tricks and flicks.  As  I saw in the Pirates game, your Oupa Manyisa’s and Tlou Segolela’s of this world tended to provide the trickery and, unfortunately, when the ball came to the target man, he was either too slow to get past the man or to latch on to a through ball. At other times he intentionally slowed the game down, holding up play and waiting for support (which is probably why the coach brought him on in the first place).  This usually causes a lot of frustration for local fans.

Holding up play is not attractive – it doesn’t quite go along with images an average South African visualizes when thinking about diski.  This usually leads to calls for the big guy upfront to be taken off for a more graceful player, regardless of the whether this replacement will be as effective.

This mindset has probably contributed in arguably the best target man in the League, Mame Niang, playing for PSL rookies, Pretoria University.  Tuks, as the Pretoria-based team is commonly known, plays beautiful football while Niang diligently provides a different route to goal and is almost unstoppable in the air – just ask the similarly tall, Mathew Booth.

Should the coach bows under the pressure and answer the fans’ prayers and decides to put in the flashy player and fails to achieve the most desirable result, fans then blame the coach for either (a) putting Mr Target Man in the starting line-up to begin with (b) having favourites, or (c) wasting “talent” on the bench (whatever that means). And as we all know, in the PSL, job security for a coach is all but a dream. 

This is where coaching team with a very small, calmer fan base is to a team’s advantage in South Africa. Gavin Hunt, coach of the three-time PSL champions Supersport United, is never afraid to tinker with his line-up from tactical or disciplinary reasons and put in the likes of Glen Salmon or in the current setup, Nathan Paulse. This is because the small band of supporters is not as demanding and I should think it is a bit easier to resist pressure from 1,500 or so fans rather than 40,000.

But that’s South African soccer for you. Beautiful soccer is at times more important than winning soccer. For some time after he left Orlando Pirates, Kosta Papic was a firm fan-favourite in South Africa simply because of the how he managed to get the Pirates team of that period playing silky, speedy, and slick football unlike the more successful Gordon Igesund and Roy Barreto (both whom were let go by the club despite winning a league title).

As a consumer of the game, think to yourself: what’s more important to you,  champagne football football or championship football?

Thomas Monyepao

"Yellow Nation" see red!

I decided to take a foreign colleague of mine to the stadium this afternoon to watch a game between Moroka Swallows and Mamelodi Sundowns so that he can experience “real: South African soccer, live. What a bad day to do that…

For some strange reason, tickets for the game were not made available at Computicket.  Thus, we first had to endure a struggle and look for the place or individual who was selling tickets for the game. This delayed us slightly and we missed out on seeing the game’s opening goal.   In all honesty, the game was not the most entertaining game I have ever seen.

As the game wore on I kept poking to my Ugandan friend, Steven, to show him how the tension in the Yellow Nation’s (Sundowns supporters’) stand was increasing as the game wore in. The worst was yet to come.

The game ended 2-0 in favour of the home team.  The coaches’ interviews were being done, while in the background, the traveling band of Mamelodi Sundowns supporters was busy devising a way of breaking down the fence on the east side of the stadium.   

As I was seated in the main grand stand with fellow Moroka Swallows supporters, things didn’t look like they would get out of control.

 Although I am not quite the best photographer in town, I managed to take a few snaps which tell the story better than I can.  There was chaos. Steven was stunned.

Notice how some fans have pieces of what used to be a fence in the hands

Downs fans even tipped over the coaches' dugout

Steven could not believe his eyes

I think the violence lasted for about thirty minutes after the final whistle. Supporters - kids and adults alike - were running wild all over the Dobsonville stadium pitch, while the main group was causing trouble with the police and security officials. They were outnumbered by the unruly supporters and I wondered how badly this would end – we have all seen civilians shot for causing far less trouble without directly attacking the police.

Alex Tshakaone managed to escape unscathed into the tunnel after he decided t make a run for it when it began to seem clear that this time the Yellow Nation was here to make a statement and would not back down no matter which club official Sundowns sent to try calm them down.  The fans have clearly had enough of coach Johan Neeskens.  Few coaches manage to keep their job at the helm one of the Big Three with a record like that.

As I write this, I am pretty sure Neeskens will be relieved of his duties tomorrow morning. The fans have been heard chanting Pitso Mosimane’s name (yes, the very same Pitso that almost every soccer fan in South Africa described as a “clueless coach” after his rather unsuccessful time as national team coach).

This could be Pitso’s chance to return to the big time. However, do not be surprised if Sundowns owner Patrice Motsepe whips out his cheque book and buys out the contract of another Dutch coach – but only this time, a Dutch coach who has actually enjoyed success in the Premier Soccer League.

If it isn’t obvious by now, I am referring to none other than Ruud Krol.

Watch this space.

Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter

The real popcorns were sitting in the stands

As many of you will know, the past week was an international week with no club action. I must admit I prefer to watch club football much more than the friendly extravaganza that takes place once in a while.

Gordon Igesund enjoyed a decent start to his tenure as Bafana Bafana coach despite suffering a 1-0 loss against five-time world champions, Brazil.  The side had plenty of new faces and faces we only got to see for five minutes (I’m looking at you Benni).  The game wasn’t beautiful to watch and the Brazilian fans made it known to everybody watching. Some of the spectators even decided to boo the best player in the world, Neymar (according to Pele) and chants of “Neymar you are a popcorn” rang around the stadium as he was coming off  near the end of the game.

 

In an interview after the match, Neymar had this to say:  "I do not know the exact reason behind the fans' behaviour, but it might have something to do with the presence of Palmeiras, Corinthians and Sao Paulo supporters in the crowd. But I repeat, they should be supporting the team rather than booing players from rival teams."

Neymar endured a tough outing and it did not help that he was playing in a city that's home to his club team, Santos’ three main rivals. But whether his claims are true (that some rival teams supporters were giving him a hard time) or whether Neymar is simply failing to take tough criticism on the chin and accept that he put in a poor performance, Neymar’s words made me think of the situation in South Africa.

In the days leading up to Bafana-Brazil game, there were plenty of discussion and debates on Twitter, the social networking platform, as to why there seems to be so many Chiefs players and not Orlando Pirates stars like Andile Jali or former darling other Happy people, Teko Modise.  Looking at the situation I asked myself (and tweeted, of course) why we – as South Africans – are debating and worrying over such trivial matters like how many players of a certain team happen to be in the Gordon Igesund first squad, instead of giving - not only the coach, but the national team as a whole - our full support.  

I wondered whether this phenomenon also took place in other countries like England, Italy or Spain, the current Euro and World Cup champions.  For example, were English people from the city of Manchester mad at the fact that Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott was chosen for the Euro 2012 squad instead of Manchester United Rio Ferdinand? Did these “supporters” bring any logical reasoning to the table when discussing the pros and cons of bringing in Lescott ahead of Rio or did discussions disintegrate into a name-calling contest with comments such as “Roy Hodgson is Man City supporter, look at all those City players” or comments like “This team is a ManCOWster City replica”?  And yes, I realise that The English squad contained a large number of Manchester United players, but surely even that would not be too much of an obstacle to stop small-minded supporters from criticizing anything and everything that they don’t agree with, with the intensity  of criticism being based on which team the player in question plays for.

One does hope that as supporters of our national soccer team, we begin act as a united front, and cheer  without fear or favour (as SoccerZone’s Sylvester Ndaba would say) and that in South Africa we do not ever experience scenes where a certain play is booed mainly because of the club team he belongs to.

International football is difficult enough without having to deal with negative vibes from your own supporters. 

Support your team fully and stop acting like a popcorn!

Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter (Tom_18Yards)