DURBAN – Bafana Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki is choosing to look on the bright side of things.
While he is just as frustrated as anyone else about the having to sit idle while waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to disappear, South Africa’s senior national team coach believes things can only get better.
Ntseki was ready for back-to-back 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sao Tome and Principe, which have since been postponed.
But he believes that it will be good to have regular international action when the time arrives.
Bafana Bafana goes into camp on Sunday, 22 March for the back-to-back matches against Sao Tome pic.twitter.com/qs81oN4SKv
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) March 12, 2020
“We will at least get to play a lot of matches in a short period and that will bring about the rhythm and the right tactical cohesion. If you look at the current Fifa calendar, we only play for two to three months,” Ntseki said.
“Whenever you have them in camp, you are working on certain tactical and technical aspects of the game. If we don’t play the match, it is affecting the team in a bad way. If we will be playing matches back to back, in a way, it will help our team and our players to have a better understanding of what you want to see from them.”
Ntseki acknowledged though that the break is frustrating. “It is a setback for the whole world which is going through what can be defined as a very sad period for sports,” Ntseki said.
The new Bafana coach was compelled to cancel his training camp.
“We can’t even tell when are we going to resume with our sporting activities. It is really a setback because we had already announced the team that was to play against Sao Tome. Unfortunately that has been cancelled or suspended. The players and all of us were looking forward to playing that match. It is not happening and it is a real setback for all of us,” Ntseki added.
SAFA suspends all football activities https://t.co/LilnQ6T2OB
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) March 16, 2020
Players from the rest of the world are still in the dark as to when will they be back in action.
“The players will have to play catch-up in their domestic leagues and at the same time they have to come and play for their respective national teams. It will be more of an overload on the side of the players whether mentally or physically. But it is going to be an overload. We are just hopeful that whenever we are over this period, players will go back fresh and then do well for their clubs. We will then start again profiling them accordingly to bring them in to the national team,” Ntseki said. Ntseki is not resting on his laurels though and he is working diligently behind the scenes.
“We are using this time to profile our opponents, individual players and our team so that whenever we resume with our camp, we will be able to represent ourselves when we face Ghana, Sao Tome or Sudan,” Ntseki stated.