DURBAN – Molefi Ntseki came under widespread criticism for the Bafana Bafana squad he recently selected for back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sao Tome and Principe. Those matches have since been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
But Ntseki is aware that he can’t please everyone.
“Unfortunately you can’t even start thinking about making people happy because everybody has got their own interests when it comes to team selection. Every South African wants to be in the team. Any of those players who are not selected will always feel bad to,” Ntseki said yesterday.
The omissions of Maritzburg United defender Rushine De Reuck and AmaZulu striker Bongi Ntuli had a significant section of the soccer public up in arms, but Ntseki understands.
“If I’m a football supporter and I happen to love this particular player and he is not in the national team, I’ll obviously feel bad. But all you need to understand is that we select players based on the plan going into to the game on the assessment and analysis we’ve done on our opponents,” he added.
There was no noise regarding Ntseki’s previous Bafana squad, but he left the masses divided with his recent selection.
“It is not like you select players without going through the profiling that you think will work out. When it comes to individual players, we profile them accordingly. After having profiled them, we look at our opponents, how we want to approach the game and then we take it from there,” Ntseki explained.
Ntseki will be aiming to propel Bafana to the continental tournament in Cameroon as well as Qatar 2022 when the Afcon and the World Cup qualifiers resume.
“As for making everyone happy, unfortunately we are fully aware that it is something we can’t get right because of individual interests and individual players who want to be in the team,” Ntseki said.