Pressure mounts on Bafana

The teams played to a 2-all draw in Saturday’s first leg tie – which did little to ease the pressure mounting on Bafana Bafana as they look to book their spot in next year’s competition.

Nevertheless the result was an impressive one away from home and lifted Bafana from the bottom of the group M table. With three games left to ensure qualification, South Africa needs wins to pick up vital points on the log.

In a weird twist of irony, the Bafana camp seems to feel more pressure when they play at home in front of their fans. Captain Itumeleng Khune summed that up as he reflected on their performance over the weekend.

 “I don’t know if the other players have noticed but it seems that we enjoy playing well when we are away from home. I think for us, it’s less pressure when we are away; we play good flowing football and we end up winning the hearts of other countries supporters and they end up rooting for us,” Khune said.

“Back at home, there is that pressure because people are expecting results and fireworks whenever we take the field. It is fair, that is what they should expect and we must produce results in every match we play whether at home or away.

“We carry the hopes of this country and I don’t blame our fans for being so hard on us when we don’t get results. But we will keep pushing hard, playing well and complement our good flowing football with great results going forward."

Despite the ramifications of whatever happens tonight, coach Shakes Mashaba pleaded for Bafana fans to get behind the team – having seen how Cameroon’s faithful flooded the stadium in Limbe on Saturday.

“What we saw in Cameroon, as early as 12 o’clock that stadium was almost three-quarters full. At no stage, even when we scored a goal, did you ever hear them booing their team. They were always rooting for their team,” Mashaba stressed.

“Yes we did get them, when the score was 2-1, cheering for us. But there was no fighting or anything. That is what we need to talk to people about.

“You should have seen people at the hotel. They were coming to me saying ‘this is our time as Africans, we need to stop going to Europe, we’ve got coaches locally here and let us try and use our people’."

Mashaba also stressed that the national side was not concerned about proving a point to detractors.

“We won’t stop people from saying what they want to say, we are not after making them ‘eat humble pie’. Or responsibility is to play good football, win games and qualify,” the coach said.

Kickoff at the Moses Mabhida Stadium is at 20h00.

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