THE prowess of Sundowns and Yanga demonstrates what it takes to lead and develop.
Leadership lessons, books and practices are about to enter the national lexicon as Mamelodi Sundowns was held to a draw in Tanzania and yet another draw in South Africa by Yanga, or Young Africans Sports Club, of Tanzania.
Lessons that can be applied as South Africa heads to elections next month.
I have not been to a live football game since March 2018. Thanks to the courtesy of Quinton Fortune, the Bafana Bafana midfielder at that time, I went to watch Manchester United and Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in London.
I was on a mission at the University College London where we explored the question of gender equality and education and the capability approach that Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is renowned to have researched in great detail.
The game was high paced, the stadium packed to the brim and the usual monotonous song filled the vibrant stadium. The final score was 3-1 to Man United.
That was a great memory. Now six years later I finally watched another game live last Friday when Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa was hosting Yanga of Tanzania. Not often are international games well attended, but the Friday game held at Loftus Stadium in Pretoria was an exception.
Loftus was about 85% percent full. The Yellow Sundowners came in their full force. The 120 minutes were spent standing, not on the platform where the chairs are anchored, but on the chairs themselves. The game, however, was not that great. The piano and shoe-shine that Sundowns is known for did not feature.
What unlocked the tie was a penalty shootout, with Sundowns surviving with a 3-2 score.
Yanga paralysed Sundowns with dangerous bursts of speed forward. There was a troublesome jersey number 10 from Yanga who beat everyone, only to be stopped by the inner side of the crossbar. It took VAR, otherwise known as a Video Assistant Referee, to clear that the Yanga attempt was not a goal.
Otherwise, South Africa would have been a meal for Tanzania in its own backyard. This was an outcome that I would not have imagined given that Tanzania has never been known as a footballing nation, let alone against the several times cup winners of the South African Professional Soccer League and the African Football League.
Instead, Tanzania is respected in South Africa for its role in the liberation of South Africa.
Furthermore, the Morogoro Conference of the ANC took place from April 25 to May 1, 1969. This is what is etched in the conscience of South Africans.
Tanzania is also renowned for training in official statistics and when I became Statistician-General in 2000, by August of 2001 I sent the first contingent of officials who trained in official statistics. That opened the path for many more to drink from the bowl of Mwalimu Nyerere from Statistics South Africa.
However, on Friday Tanzania held its own in South Africa at Loftus. When I enquired about this club that seemingly out of obscurity emerged to challenge the pedigree master bull, I was informed that not only does Tanzania have one club reaching for the stars, but it in fact has two clubs.
At that point I got really worried that the club of Zola Mahobe, Screamer Tshabalala and Iwi Kambule was in real trouble as it failed to make any attempt at goals. The Tanzanians were marking tightly and were very rough at it. The referee throughout the game only had two yellow cards, where at least one red could have been a possibility. but the VAR confirmed it as a yellow against the visitors.
During the penalty shootout the stadium was at tenterhooks and when Sundowns narrowly escaped the guillotine it was such a relief.
South Africa faces a difficult time and a guillotine hangs over its head.
Elections, which pundits offer as a solution, have yet to prove with their manifesto in the future as to how to solve the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
An election, like a penalty shootout, might just assist one, or a coalition of parties, to run and hide in the Union Buildings from the scrutiny of the public.
While Sundowns survived by the skin of their teeth against little-known Tanzania as a football nation, at least it has an unmistakable record of great prowess from the days of Zola Mahobe, the founding father of present-day Mamelodi Sundowns, to date where it represented our national pride gallantly even though we came third.
As for the intended progressive outcomes of our democratic order at the national, provincial and local governments, Yanga would have walked over us without recourse or any comfort in defeat.
This is because ours at the very highest level bleeds with a lack of ethics, empathy or education. It is a triple-e tragedy that has deepened the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment instead of speeding up an exit from them.
Those in power are consuming not only the harvest, but they have decided to devour the seed and the future of South Africans. The prowess of Sundowns and Yanga demonstrates what it takes to preserve legacies by leading with purpose and developing with commitment, otherwise Zola Mahobe’s Sundowns would have been a story line on a beer hall.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished alumnus of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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