If statistics are, as the saying often goes, nothing more than numbers on a piece of paper with very little influence on the outcome of matches – why do coaches always refer to past matches?
Before he left for Angola with Bafana Bafana, Shakes Mashaba did his best to tread carefully about South Africa’s recent matches against the Palancas Negras.
Yet try as he might to avoid pointing to history, the coach of our country’s senior national team couldn’t help but point to the fact that his full squad got the better of their opposition.
A few months ago – in a friendly international played on Youth Day in Cape Town – a full-strength Bafana beat Angola 2-1 courtesy of goals from Thamsanqa Gabuza and Ayanda Patosi.
It is that result and not the recent aggregate 2-3 defeat in the Championship of African Nations (CHAN) qualifier that Mashaba will use in his team talk as he strives to motivate his team towards victory in tomorrow’s World Cup 2nd round first leg qualifier in Benguela.
Such is the way of pseudo-psychologists that are coaches – they are specialists in focusing on the positives.
As he searches for further positives, Mashaba will probably also refer to the fact that a third string Bafana side got a positive result (2-1) in Angola and will tell his tried-and-tested troops that they can surely do better than the bunch of PSL clubs’ bench-warmers he had taken along with to Luanda.
In the end though it will all boil down to the team knuckling down and dishing out a performance similar to the one that saw them stun the highly ranked Costa Rica in their own backyard last month.
Anything close to that slick showing that had Andile Jali score the match’s only goal and Bafana should have no problem overcoming an Angola side that will also have their own statistics to look at for inspiration.
While South Africa have generally had the better of their southern African neighbours, Angola have a splendid home record in World Cup qualifiers.
Having participated at the finals only once – in Germany 2006 – Angola have been pretty hard to beat in their own backyard over the years. They have lost only once at home and that defeat (2-1) was to the Cameroon side that went on to reach the quarter-finals of the global showpiece at Italia 90.
Their overall World Cup qualifying home record would be a source of envy for even the top outfits on the continent – Angola’s vital statistics reading Won 18, Drawn 10, Lost 1.
It will take some special performance by the inconsistent Bafana to have the last column read 2 by the end of tomorrow.
That the likes of Nigeria, Algeria, Senegal and Egypt have failed to win in Angola should tell Mashaba and his team the tough nature of their assignment.
But he is a glass-half-full kind of coach, Bra Shakes, and his confidence since the draw was made could well be the key to Bafana succeeding where some of the continent’s giants have previously failed.
Yet with tomorrow’s match at the Estadio Nacional de Ombaka in Benguela just half of the tie against Angola, Mashaba will know to gleefully accept a draw with goals in the knowledge that his team will enjoy the advantage of a partisan crowd in the second leg in Durban on Tuesday.
He will, however, do his best to keep this incredible statistic of Angola’s home record from reaching his team’s ears and rather remind them of that win they registered over their adversaries in Cape Town on June 16. - The Star