Why South Africa is doing badly at football.
So, I'm watching this video on why Americans think they suck at soccer & they have qualified for every World Cup since 1986 except the last one in 2018, recently won the Concacaf Cup & beat South Africa not so long ago in the Mandela Cup in South Africa. We should be more upset in South Africa as a footballing country that we only last qualified for a FIFA World Cup in 2002 & rarely qualify for AFCON tournaments. So in this blog I hope to analyse why South Africa "sucks" at football.
I think branding has a lot to do with things; I remember Former President Thabo Mbeki claiming our national team has a weak name in "Bafana Bafana" which means "Boys Boys" or colloquially "Our Boys" in Zulu. I do believe that a national team needs strong branding as well. How much branding plays into the psyche of players & management is debatable. While it could be embarrasing giving a team a strong brand & them failing everytime, the shirts Bafana Bafana have chosen are not as striking as the shirts of west African & north African national teams & SAFA having a flower on the crest is not as bold as the lion, elephant or eagle on Cameroon, Ivory Coast & Nigeria's crests respectively so maybe branding has a lot to do with things indeed.
When football was doing well in South Africa, it was part of street culture & had characters not academy graduates. I'm not downplaying the importance of sports academies but more than development, I believe a player needs to play with their heart & that's what street culture is about as opposed to the cold, unfamiliar & foreign European philosophies we've brought to South Africa often employed by South African football academies & teams. In 2013, an email of mine to KickOff Magazine was published in the supporters section where I explained the importance of taking football back to the people i. e. to the streets & I've heard calls from football analysts & football fans alike that echo the same sentiments of bringing back the Jezi number 10, Jabu "Shuffle" Pule & what I coined in my email as "Kasi street style" football because that is what South Africans identify with.
Ofcourse, football is not won simply with style but also structures around the team. In South Africa we have a sad case of football managers that are more than willing to crush the football hopes & dreams of young talent to make a quick buck. We also don't have the talent identifying structures & development academies Europe has so a lot of talent is gone to waste.
Lastly, I feel the need to comment on the ever present problem of tribalism in South African football & South Africa in general. For some reason, there's a third force in South Africa that wants to push Sotho players to the front & get Xhosa, coloured or even Indian players to replace Zulu players in professional football in South Africa. As someone who has always identified as Zulu, this is obviously strange to me & I'm not going to be blindly nationalist & see Zulu footballers as the best but football is somewhat something Zulu people like (e. g. AmaZulu Football Club & Thanda Royal Zulu F. C.) so are bound to be good at to some extent. Zulu football players are often prevented at breaking national team records (e. g. Siyabonga Nomvethe & Siphiwe Tshabalala prevented from getting more goals in the South African national team, Zulu players prevented from getting more appearances for the national team). The tribalism has gotten so bad that Zulu players & goalkeepers are often sent to lower teams in the South African premier league to apply their trade there in favour of players & goalkeepers from other countries & some talents just disappear with us not knowing where they went. At this rate we may have to go the Matabeleland route & create a Zulu Football Association.
All the above are why I think South African football has failed in recent times to the extent of losing against countries that most fans have never even heard of.
I think branding has a lot to do with things; I remember Former President Thabo Mbeki claiming our national team has a weak name in "Bafana Bafana" which means "Boys Boys" or colloquially "Our Boys" in Zulu. I do believe that a national team needs strong branding as well. How much branding plays into the psyche of players & management is debatable. While it could be embarrasing giving a team a strong brand & them failing everytime, the shirts Bafana Bafana have chosen are not as striking as the shirts of west African & north African national teams & SAFA having a flower on the crest is not as bold as the lion, elephant or eagle on Cameroon, Ivory Coast & Nigeria's crests respectively so maybe branding has a lot to do with things indeed.
When football was doing well in South Africa, it was part of street culture & had characters not academy graduates. I'm not downplaying the importance of sports academies but more than development, I believe a player needs to play with their heart & that's what street culture is about as opposed to the cold, unfamiliar & foreign European philosophies we've brought to South Africa often employed by South African football academies & teams. In 2013, an email of mine to KickOff Magazine was published in the supporters section where I explained the importance of taking football back to the people i. e. to the streets & I've heard calls from football analysts & football fans alike that echo the same sentiments of bringing back the Jezi number 10, Jabu "Shuffle" Pule & what I coined in my email as "Kasi street style" football because that is what South Africans identify with.
Ofcourse, football is not won simply with style but also structures around the team. In South Africa we have a sad case of football managers that are more than willing to crush the football hopes & dreams of young talent to make a quick buck. We also don't have the talent identifying structures & development academies Europe has so a lot of talent is gone to waste.
Lastly, I feel the need to comment on the ever present problem of tribalism in South African football & South Africa in general. For some reason, there's a third force in South Africa that wants to push Sotho players to the front & get Xhosa, coloured or even Indian players to replace Zulu players in professional football in South Africa. As someone who has always identified as Zulu, this is obviously strange to me & I'm not going to be blindly nationalist & see Zulu footballers as the best but football is somewhat something Zulu people like (e. g. AmaZulu Football Club & Thanda Royal Zulu F. C.) so are bound to be good at to some extent. Zulu football players are often prevented at breaking national team records (e. g. Siyabonga Nomvethe & Siphiwe Tshabalala prevented from getting more goals in the South African national team, Zulu players prevented from getting more appearances for the national team). The tribalism has gotten so bad that Zulu players & goalkeepers are often sent to lower teams in the South African premier league to apply their trade there in favour of players & goalkeepers from other countries & some talents just disappear with us not knowing where they went. At this rate we may have to go the Matabeleland route & create a Zulu Football Association.
All the above are why I think South African football has failed in recent times to the extent of losing against countries that most fans have never even heard of.
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