Goal scoring a grassroots problem - Mashaba

The result has all but ruled Bafana Bafana out of qualifying for the 2017 African Cup of Nations. South Africa have drawn three of their four qualifiers and have just three points on the table.

Having drawn 2-all with Cameroon in a far more entertaining clash on Saturday, Bafana Bafana needed a win to give their qualifying chances a big boost. However Cameroon were comfortably on top of the group and came to the Moses Mabhida Stadium with a defensive mind-set.

Nevertheless Mashaba said that missed chances cost his side.

“Let’s compliment Cameroon on both legs. They managed to thwart our plans; we wanted to win both games. Unfortunately it didn’t work but we did everything that was supposed to be done except scoring goals,” Mashaba said.

“I think the games were of high tempo. We managed to contain them and they also managed to contain them. We knew they would come here and try to defend – they were going to be happy to secure one point which is what they did.”

“We took the game to them and I’d like to compliment my boys for carrying the game plan accordingly. Unfortunately we couldn’t score goals.”

While the result has left Bafana Bafana with the slimmest qualifying chances for next year’s tournament in Gabon, Mashaba insisted that his side would go out to win their remaining two matches to gain maximum points.

“We still have another six points to play for. If we win the next two games we will sit on nine points and hope that we can get into the two runner-up spots. We are not going to throw in the towel, we still have Gambia away and Mauritania at home,” Mashaba said.

“Anything in football can happen. I know when we went to Cameroon nobody gave us a chance. Everybody was saying ‘you’re going to be hammered’, talking about big names like their striker playing for PSV – it’s not about who you are in football, it’s about what you can do.

“I heard the coach from Cameroon say he was surprised by where this team is where it is today.

“Truly speaking, we fluffed it in our first two games. It was possibly because of not preparing well. What I can say is that those two games let us down, the two games now (against Cameroon) that we played and collected points should have been adding to the points if we had won the first game and drew the second game, then it would be a different story.”

Reverting back to their troubles on the night, Mashaba insisted that goal scoring is a problem that needs to be addressed at developmental levels.

“The problem of scoring goals doesn’t start here. These are things you cannot address in the senior national team. You have only three days at the most. If you look at what we do in our training sessions, you’re talking tactical work, defending, attacking, you’ve got to work set pieces and before you can finish you’re on a plane on your way to play a match.”

“Those are the things that need to be addressed. Not even in PSL, it should come from grassroots that is where people are taught things to grow up with.”

Bafana Bafana will take on Gambia in June.

Twitter - @gazza_jenks @ECRSportswave

Facebook - ECRSportswave

Image Credit - Gallo Images