I'm tired of even trying to defend them anymore. You'd think it's easier for a Bafana back four to defend against Mauritania than for us Bafana fans to defend our national soccer team – but it's not.
Every time we embarrass ourselves like this I get told by all and sundry how crap our soccer in this country is. I get asked why our cricket team and rugby team are world contenders and our soccer team are average pretenders – and usually I can make quite a strong argument and then hope like hell when we next play that we do something special in a Bafana jersey. To be honest, I wish we were not playing against Senegal this week. Because if the performance we put together against Mauritania is what our lads, our technical team and SAFA feel honours our country, I'm loath to think what the team is going to put forward to honour the memory of Nelson Mandela.
The sad part is this was an opportunity to show all of South Africa what unity in sport can look like. How good we can be when colour is not a focal point of selection, but rather ability and togetherness. Instead, we're the laughing stock of a sporting nation.
Now you and I will both hear from SAFA that "fixing" our national team will take time. That we must be patient and understand that these things don't change over night. But is this not the same thing we heard 10 years ago? Is this not the same thing we heard in 2010 when we hosted a World Cup? At what stage does their time elapse on delivering a powerful national team to a country that is besotted with soccer?
For me, this is just not good enough. I'd love to hear from all our Supporter Club members, our VIPs of Soccer Laduma, what they think the main problems are with their Bafana Bafana and how we should go about fixing it.
We'll make sure your views are sent to SAFA.
Thanks
Clint
