Looking dapper in a three-piece navy suit and claiming he’d shed some kilos because of the stress of the job, Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba opened up to journalists this week about his relationship with the media, Kamohelo Mokotjo and allegations that players have to google the opposition prior to a crucial match.
The selection criteria topic naturally came up.
Are you the right man for the job?
I don’t doubt my ability. I have been working with national teams for many years and people have the right to judge. But I would like reasons to be given if someone argues that I am not good at what I do.
For now, I have no doubt in my ability and I look forward to continue with Bafana in the World Cup qualifiers (for 2018 in Russia).
We need to be careful of the chopping and changing of coaches because it is taking us nowhere. I am not trying to say keep me indefinitely, but if someone new arrives each time there’s a problem, we are going backwards.
Do you think you have been unfairly criticised?
I am the kind of person who doesn’t believe there is a right or wrong way to criticise. The only problem is that people tend to exaggerate, bringing things that are not there.
I have to accept criticism because if I don’t, then I am not able to grow in what I am doing.
People are resigned to the fact that Bafana won’t be at the Africa Cup of Nations tournament next year. Do you still have hope?
We have two games to play and if we win those games we have a chance. What is unfortunate is that we are relying on other teams in our group to make the job easy for us . And it’s not even a guarantee that we will win our two games. But we have to work hard and also look forward because we have World Cup qualifiers coming up.
What went wrong? You qualified unbeaten for the 2015 edition in Equatorial Guinea.
The planning we had then made us look better and the fixtures were back-to-back and helped us with consistency.
But with these current qualifiers, you have to sit for three months before you play your next match and that means we have to start from scratch looking for (in-form) players.
There has been a steady decline in SA football. Are we as good as we think we are?
We have put ourselves at a level we haven’t yet reached, but I don’t want to blame anyone for that.
People want us to win the Afcon and the World Cup. We have only won the Cosafa Cup twice and this is where we have to start – by being champions in our region. Then we can dream about the Afcon again.
I was also deceived by our performance in the first match in Equatorial Guinea (a 3-1 defeat to Algeria). To an extent, our downward spiral is also in the mind.
A few Bafana players who did not want to be named claimed recently that you are incompetent as a national team coach. How is your relationship with the players?
There is not even a single player that has come to me with a problem about the way I do things. We train together, we have meals together and we depart.
I doubt there is a player that can openly say I have wronged them and they are not happy with me.
Do you talk tactics with them?
Since we took over this team (Mashaba’s first game in charge was in September 2014) we have been playing good football. And it is still the same.
I feel we are helping our players whenever they are part of the national team.
What is your explanation for not playing Mokotjo?
We invite players based on their form, but that doesn’t mean you will automatically be in the team.
We tell players they have to compete for their position in the few days we are together before a big match. The players have an equal opportunity to prove themselves.
What worries me about Mr Mokotjo’s case is that it has been made personal, like I don’t like him.
I want to highlight that Mokotjo went through these hands at the age of 12. When we went to France in 2003 and we won the Danone Nations Cup and Mokotjo was scoring goals like they were running out of fashion, I was the team manager.
For a long time I was not with Mokotjo until recently when I was appointed Bafana coach. How could I possibly hate him in such a short space of time?
The door remains open for him (the FC Twente midfielder put his international career on ice earlier this month) to return to the national team even though he has said he will not play as long as I am the coach.
How will you mend your relationship?
I am disappointed in the manner in which he voiced his issues. My assistant coaches and I were available. Even team manager Barney Kujane, who plays a father figure role for the players, was another channel.
I really hope I meet with Mokotjo for him to tell me what has made him so angry that he won’t play while I am here. It is not a very good thing to hear.
Do you have access to overseas-based players?
It’s necessary to travel to watch them, but sometimes you travel all the way and a player is not in the line-up. At best, maybe he gets 30 minutes. Then you see another one who plays the entire match, but when he arrives in camp he is not the same player you saw.
We have to rely on stats that come from clubs, and when they come here they still need to show us what they can do on the field.
Are your two assistant coaches, Owen da Gama and Thabo Senong, ball boys?
We have such a good working relationship. They can hold a training session on their own and don’t have to look at me to tell them what to do. We also decide the team together because they bring their own line-up and I bring mine, then we decide which team can do the job for us.