Roger De Sa refuses to be drawn into a war of words with Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba.
Mashaba was up in arms earlier in the week after reading in a Joburg newspaper that Ajax Cape Town coach De Sa was quoted as saying that “Cape Town players get overlooked”.
The SA national team’s head coach then went on radio to say he had wanted to include Ajax players in the Cosafa Cup squad, but never got the go-ahead from the Cape side.
“I went to Cape Town to speak to them about giving us their players,” Mashaba told the radio station. “Roger was in that meeting with the director (Ari Efstathiou), and we asked them to release their players for the national team and they flatly refused. He (De Sa) should apologise because when you are talking about the national team, you are talking about me and they are making me look bad.”
De Sa said he was unaware of the furore, but had been alerted to it when his sister in Joburg sent him a link to the story. The Ajax coach said he certainly wasn’t going to dignify it with a response. As far as he was concerned, it was simply a case of his words being twisted to suit the thrust of the article.
“I certainly don’t remember saying anything like that,” said De Sa. “What I did say was that we had six nominees for the Premier Soccer League (PSL) awards and I would like to see them being considered for national teams. I was also referring more particularly to the youth players in the squad, who cannot get into the junior national squads… For example, at the age of 21, Travis Graham is the youngest captain in the PSL, he hasn't even sniffed the national under-23 squad. What about Mosa Lebusa? Probably one of the better left-backs in the country – yet, he, too, apparently isn’t good enough for a place in the under-23 squad.
“But I don’t want to get involved. It’s not my problem, is it? My job is to focus on the success of Ajax. In any case, I get on very well with Shakes...”
And, so, looking back at the season just past – in which the Cape club finished fifth on the PSL standings and as runners-up in the Nedbank Cup – what is De Sa’s assessment of the campaign?
“I’m content with what we achieved, but I don’t believe it’s any cause to get carried away,” said De Sa. “The important thing to remember is that we still didn’t win anything. We certainly can’t brag too much because we have nothing to show for the season. What we did do, though, was build a sound foundation for the season ahead.
“I don’t think many people expected us to perform as well as we did. The main thing was that we always hung in there and kept on believing. We stayed in touch with the front four throughout the season and that was good.
“And, if you think about it, it could have been better. There was a period in December when we hit a bad patch, with four draws and four losses, and that was during the time when our injuries and lack of depth came to the fore. But once we brought in Toriq Losper, Erwin Isaacs and Riyaad Norodien in January, it made the squad competitive again. Players then came back from injury and we had the necessary depth to maintain a good finish to the season.”
De Sa said that his top priority was to strengthen the squad – he now has an extra competition to focus on, with Ajax participating in the African Confederations Cup next season.
“There are a few areas we need to strengthen,” he said. “Top of the list is a big, strong centre-back, which will be important for certain games in the PSL and a definite must for the Confederations Cup.
“Then, we have to focus on a striker. I think if you look at Ajax’s history, you will see that when the club has a good goalscorer, they usually do well, like when Terror Fanteni and Mabhudi Khenyeza were here. The idea is probably to look for two strikers, one who can play the target role and one who can perhaps play out wide as well. This will be important because we will lose Tashreeq Morris for the first few months of next season (Morris tore ligaments in his knee during the Nedbank Cup final).
“And we will also have to find a right-back because Nazeer Allie has moved to Wits. Obviously, for this position, we will first see what we have in the youth ranks before making a decision on looking for a new player.
“But the big problem, of course, at a club like Ajax, is the size of the cheque book. I have to work within a budget when trying to find players and that’s always a difficult exercise. But we are trying… I’m on the phone all the time, I’m calling in favours, I’m looking, and we are doing the best we can… But we’ll see how it goes.
“But, essentially, I want to get four decent players who will improve the squad… I don’t want any passengers.” - Cape Argus