Bafana Bafana have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations and SAFA are likely to make a big thing out of it, but the association should not only be focusing on the senior national teams because the junior sides are not going to succeed if no one is paying attention to them.
The national under-23 failed to qualify for the AFCON and subsequently the 2024 Olympics and there are already people who are calling for David Notoane's head. Of course, that's how football is. But when do we call for heads to roll at SAFA? Because, it's not as if the under-23s have been given enough time as a team to progress or succeed.
Since being knocked out of the last Olympics, the under-23 squad has not come together for any friendly matches or camps for players to get to know one another even more. Almost of the players who featured at the last Olympics are no longer part of the squad and a new generation of players are expected to make miracles happen even though they have hardly spent time together in camp or playing international friendlies.
Unlike Bafana Bafana who can sometimes play friendly matches during the international breaks, the under-23s did not have the same luxury and had to assemble for qualifiers with players who hardly knew each other.
I am not here to make excuses for the team's failure to qualify, but I do feel that SAFA need to take responsibility for the state in which the junior national teams are in at the moment, including the under-17s and under-20s. These are teams that should be qualifying for continental competitions as well as the World Cup, but that's not happening on a regular basis and we somehow expect the senior national team to be performing miracles. Think about it - when was the last time you heard that the national under-23 team is playing a friendly match?
When I started working as a journalist, the junior national teams spent a lot of time in camp and they got to know one another as teammates. To be specific, I followed Serame Letsoaka's national under-20 team which had the likes of Mandla Masango, Thulani Hlatshwayo, Ramahlwe Mphahlele and Thulani Serero.
This team spent so much time in camp and it came as no surprise to me that they qualified for the Fifa Under-20 World Cup in Egypt in 2009 and they went beyond the group stages.
At the time, they would play international friendly matches against teams such as Botswana and Lesotho. They weren't the strongest of opposition, but being together in camp for long periods helped these players to become family and it showed in how they played together on the pitch. At the moment, it's about assembling a squad for qualifiers and hoping that they can somehow qualify for major competitions. That's a short cut and that's not show things should be done. These things take time and effort and, from what I see, the governing body of South African football is giving none of that at the moment.
Our junior national teams are underachieving at the moment and SAFA should take responsibility. They are not putting enough money and attention into these teams and it's going to keep costing us dearly going forward.
The decision to fire the national under-23 coach or not is entirely up to the association, but they have to look at themselves in the mirror and ask what they are doing to make the junior national teams better right now.
