The Bafana masterplan for 2018: This is the word of Gord

The way ahead: Igesund and squad

No point in being clever here. I'm just going to quote Gordon Igesund when it comes to the "2018 South African Masterplan" he unveiled to the SAFA technical committee on Friday morning.

Everybody I've spoken to said it was one of the most impressive presentations they'd seen in the game. A real, long-term plan for Bafana Bafana. Farouk Khan, a man who knows a thing or two about football development, described it as “something I’ve never seen from a Bafana manager before.”

We had a long talk with Gordon on SportsTalk on Talk Radio 702 and Cape Talk 567 with Udo Carelse. There's no point in me adding my comments.

IT'S THE WORD OF GORD

"It’s actually very simple, I had to put through a proposal suggesting the right way for us to go. 

“We had five players in our squad who played for the South African youth teams. The great football teams in the world have 22 of their 23 who progress through the Under 19 and Under 21s.

“This is the way we have to go with our squad. Our players have to be trained and programmed to play the system the way the national team plays.

“We have to do much, much better with our development. The Under 17 and Under 19 coaches have to buy in to our senior system.

“We’ve been through difficult times. We’re trying to get a quick fix sometimes, we’ve had so many national team coaches.

WINGLESS WONDERS

“The World Cup coach we had didn’t have wingers. The next coach wanted to play another way. The style, the system is changing too much. We have to buy in to a system we can identify with. For the next six years we have to stick to a certain style. The coaches must teach our players to use that system, that style.

“So when you get a player from the Under 23 team to the national team, he will fit in completely.

“Development can’t be done in one year. It takes 10 years, 15 years. The kids don’t have enough time to adapt. We really have to apply our minds, make sure we stick to this philosophy for the next ten years.

CONTRACT KILLER

“A week ago I was supposed to sit down with the president of SAFA but I ended up in hospital with an appendix. I’m not in a big rush to sign a new contract. I’m getting huge support, the new contract will happen.

“Indications are that it is exactly what they want. It will be no problem.

“I want a team that squeezes the opposition. We want to play 4-3-3 with three strikers, one very attacking midfielder. Against Mali we were outstanding, and Morocco. We had more possession, more attacks than any other team in the competition.

“We have great youngsters coming through, Mahlangu, Furman, Serero. This is not something new, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates play like this. Possess it, move forward quickly, don’t give it away. The blueprint is out there, as time goes on, people are going to be able to identify South African football.

“This is not a Gordon Igesund brand of football. This is South African. Like you can identify Dutch or German football.  We’ve got to hone it, play attractive football.

“We have to identify players too. We had a bit of a problem. Too many similar players up front. We have to develop it in our Under 17 team, show a striker how to play with his back to goal.

“We were the highest scoring team in our group at AFCON, not bad for a team that couldn’t score goals before the competition.

“You can’t expect to score goals if you only push forward three or four times in a game. For a team that hadn’t won in years in the AFCON, we changed things. That’s where we want to get to.

 IS IT IN THE GENES?

“High pressure. Sprinting. Stop, start. But we weren’t fit enough. I realised that was our problem. Our players have the fitness to run the Comrades Marathon but not the anaerobic fitness, the stop-and-start ability to keep going.

“That’s not naturally in our make-up. The short stuff. The 10m sprints. We’re not genetically built for that. It’s something we have to learn.

“We’ve been out of world football for far too long. We need to get it right from an early age.

“Our youngsters have to be able to play this way, a pressing game. Against Mali, we started to tire, we weren’t tight… they scored. And they won on penalties.

“We can produce world class players again. Look at our history. In the Confederations Cup, we held Spain. We’ve played the top teams in the world.

“The last 10 years or so, there’ve been so many changes. Too many short term fixes. Whether Gordon Igesund or Joe Soap is in charge, we have to develop our philosophy, work on that.

“In ten years from now, we’ll see a huge difference. Anaerobic training from a young age. Dean Furman and May Mahlangu, both playing in Europe, ran 15 and 16km in a match. Most only do 12km. And they were able to do 50 to 60 sprints, local players could only do 10 or 20 sprints.

“Tactically, we can’t play a squeezing game with our local players. We have to start scientifically get our players to a level of fitness. From an early age.

ON THE SAME PAGE

“Our junior coaches, our Under 17 and Under 21 coaches, we all need a common goal. Spain, Portugal, Germany… their squads, of the 23, each had 22 who had come through Under 17, Under 21. Each trained to play a certain way.

“My squad had 14 players who have never seen a South African youth team.

“We need to have the best coaches in there, people who have played football, know the game, able to work.

“Whether it’s me or somebody else, as head coach, I need to tell all the other coaches how we’re going to do it. For Under 20, for Under 23.

“Then all of a sudden we’re on the same page. This is hugely important.

“I’ve only just unveiled my master plan. I can’t reveal it all. There are a lot of names I’ve mentioned, people I’d like to work with. I know the coaches of want, of course I do. But it’s a bit early to name names.”

And there it is. In tablet form. The word of Gord.

This article appeared as my Neal & Pray column in The New Age this week. You can follow me on twitter at @nealcol, watch me on eTV Sunrise and eNCAnews every Monday - or simply go to www.702.co.za every night of the week, where I produce SportsTalk with Udo Carelse.

In Gordon We Trust: two great levellers and a place in the quarter-finals. Hallelujah!

Good Gord: Igesund celebrates a place in the quarter-finals

FOUR months ago, when Gordon Igesund was talking at The New Age Business Breakfast at the Sandton Convention Centre, the conversation started.

On Sunday night, it hit some kind of peak as Bafana Bafana came from behind TWICE to get the point they needed to top Group A and qualify for the quarter-finals against Mali on Saturday night at 8.30pm. After twittering #ingordonwetrust for weeks on end in the face of the army of Bafana Bafana cynics, it finally started to trend.

And last night, as he found a quiet corner at the  Moses Mabhida Stadium during the Mali v DR Congo draw, he told Udo Carelse and I on www.702.co.za SPORTSTALK: "That scene at the end there? When we were all gathered in a circle? That was a prayer. We have some good Christian boys in this squad.

"You know me, I've always been positive. And I'm hoping it's rubbing off on the team. I believe we can go a long way in this tournament. There have been a lot of negative comments, but we are positive."

Right from the start, the odds were stacked against the no-nonsense coach from Durban. An opening “friendly” against Brazil, a trip to face Poland just before the European Championship on home soil, the retirement of Steven Pienaar, the tragic death of his assistant Thomas Madigage.

But Igesund battled on. He tried players like Riccardo Nunes, who took all his dead-balls before the Portuguese-South African-Slovenian was bombed out. Like Dino Ndlovu. And whatever happened to the PSL legends Andile Jali and Teko Modise?

Come Saturday night it was all to play for. The final game of AFCON’s Group A, South Africa needing a draw against Morocco. All those weeks of hope and desperation bubbling on the social networks with the media hacks hacking away.

And who could blame them? The pre-tournament friendlies against Norway and Algeria were hardly impressive. The opening clash with Cape Verde saw a third successive game without a goal.

Then the two-goal extravaganza at the Moses Mabhida Stadium gave renewed hope, gave us optimists a glimmer of light.

But when Morocco dominated and scored in the first ten minutes on Sunday night, the lights were going out all over South Africa. We prepared, stoically, for another elimination by the narrowest of margins of home soil, just like the World Cup in 2010.

Our only hope was that little Cape Verde would NOT beat their Portuguese pals in Angola. 

Then, suddenly, at around the 71^stminute in both Durban and Port Elizabeth, the world went mad.

I was in the TalkRadio 702 studio with Udo Carelse. Chaos. Our controller Owen Matjie let rip with a few roars right in the middle of a dramatic interview with EP Kings rugby icon Luke Watson. Papers flying, microphones shoved in faces. Were we in? Were we out?

Let me quote the BBC at this point. They describe it as “a night of unrelenting drama” as first May Mahlangu and then the tournament top-scorer Siya Sangweni – a centre-back - equalised for South Africa while the verdant Verdians produced two late goals to win 2-1 against Angola and send Morocco home with three points - and nothing to show for an unbeaten campaign.

In those last twenty minutes, any of the four sides might have gone through – at one point it looked like Morocco would go out on the fact they’d suffered more BOOKINGS than the tiny Cape Verde Islands.

Ultimately, through the tumult, South Africa emerged as Group A winners and they head to their quarter-final at the Moses Mabhida on Saturday with every chance of achieving Igesund’s initial target: a place in the last four of AFCON. Even if they don’t make it, they’ve given a sceptical nation a lift.

As things stand, the path to a repeat of 1996 sees Mali on Saturday, Ivory Coast in the semi-final - also in Durban - on February 6 before a possible final against Ghana on February 10.

Igesund remains apparently unfazed by the huge reaction to his side's unexpected qualification as group leaders. He said: "We had to dig really deep, the lads fought really hard today.

“Itumeleng Khune? Fantastic job, but the whole team did well. It’s a great occasion for the home team and I think we made the country proud."

“We still got work to do, but we’re in the quarter finals now, just two games to go until the final. At the end of the day, I’m proud of my players.”

The final word goes to Gordon. Asked by a journalist: “Do you believe anything is possible?” Igesund responded: “The question is, do you believe?” In Gord we Trust.

May Mahlangu: Sadly, South Africa's only current world class player won't be playing against the Ivory Coast on Saturday

When Bafana Bafana turn out for the Nelson Mandela Challenge against the Ivory Coast on Saturday, South Africa's best current player will be inexplicably absent.
While captain Steven Pienaar struggles to get a game for Spurs, centre-back Bongani Khumalo languishes on loan at Reading and veteran striker Benni McCarthy - 34 this week - has opted out of international football, May Mahlangu can rightly claim to be the Rainbow Nation's only world class player right now.
Currently plying his trade with Swedish outfit Helsingborgs IF, Mahlangu was awarded Sweden's Player of the Year accolade at a lavish ceremony on Monday night - barely 24 hours after scoring a wondergoal and being named Man of the Match in the Swedish Cup final last weekend.
While beleaguered Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane dithers over his selection to play Africa's No1 ranked side in Port Elizabeth this weekend, he continues to ignore Mahlangu, who has been selected for Shakes Mashaba's troubled Baby Bafana - the under 23 side formerly known as AmaGlugGlug are headed to the Olympics in London next year - for the pair of friendlies in Algeria on November 12 and 15. Sadly, due to "injuries" and "non-co-operation from the clubs" that squad currently boasts just eight players as of last night.
But that won't trouble Mahlangu, after a season which has seen his club win the Swedish League and Cup double for the first time since 1941. His performances alongside established star Adrian Gashi at the Olympia Stadium have been little short of sensational - a Scandinavian Lionel Messi some say.
Farouk Khan, the scout who first spotted Mahlangu as a talented but penniless orphan in Secunda, Mpumalanga over a decade ago, said on South Africa's 702 radio station this morning: "We spotted May early on. Both his parents had died so he came to live with us for six years.
"When Helsingborgs came along they were first interested in signing a certain striker called Siyabonga Nomvete, one of our players, about ten years ago. But when they arrived and saw the standard of our academy, they decided not to buy Nomvete and chose to invest in our teenagers instead."
Khan, who runs a scouting school known as the Stars of Africa Academy, also unearthed Tokelo Rantie, the Orlando Pirates super-sub who came to light a fortnight ago with a superb late winner against Jomo Cosmos in Port Elizabeth.
Khan added: "Helsingborgs helped us financially for some years before the Swedish Krona devalued and they had to pull out. But they always kept an eye on our youngsters. And then they asked May to go over and play. He made his debut in August 2009.
"It's been fabulous for him this season. He was the best player, never got substituted and he scored in their cup final, now he has been voted their player of the year by the players and the journalists.
"He isn't a big lad (173cm, 5ft 8in) but he is quick, very quick. And so fit. We did the usual tests on him and realised that if he wasn't a footballer, he could easily be a marathon runner. That's how impressive his fitness readings were. The best we have ever seen."
Fitness is only half of it. Last Sunday, May Sifiwe Mahlangu, 22 on May 1 (hence the name), produced that cup final super-strike, beating six defenders to find the net after starting a run from his own half as Helsingborgs beat rivals Kalmar FF 3-1 to complete a magnificent treble. They won the Super Cup at the start of the season and ran away with the Allsvenskan League title as Mahlangu played in every minute of the 26 games he was available for. His side lifted their first championship in 14 years without losing a home game and finished five points clear of nearest rivals AIK Solna as they secured a Champions League place for next season.
Helsingborg coach Conny Karlsson, installing him in the attacking midfield role at the start of the season after he played 19 games in his first term at the club, said he would build his squad around the unknown South African - and he never regretted a moment. Mahlangu scored five goals in 35 games and produced the most assists in the league.
Karlsson purred: "With Mahlangu, we have won everything you can win in Sweden this season. Somebody may match that one day, but you can't do any better."

Perhaps somebody should tell the unfortunate Pitso. While he attempts to juggle the same old bunch who failed (despite the glorious victory dance) to qualify for next year's African Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, Mahlangu and Ajax Amsterdam's Thulani Serero remain with the juniors. Curious.