BAFANA Bafana will regroup in just over six weeks for the Soccer World Cup qualifying campaign.
They play against the Central African Republic at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on March 23, needing to win to keep alive their chances of going to Brazil for next year's World Cup. The match will mark the halfway point in the second phase of the qualifiers.
The South African Football Association has yet to officially proclaim coach Gordon Igesund's job safe, but should he stay, he and his players have little time for rest.
Igesund said there were plenty of players who would be taken into consideration for Bafana's 2014 qualifying campaign.
"A lot of players weren't here. For example, Daylon Claasen, Morgan Gould, Eric Mathoho and Ayanda Patosi," he said. "But I think the message everyone will get from this African Cup of Nations is that everybody's got an opportunity, and you've got to have pride, passion and commitment when you're playing for this team."
South Africa have a double whammy in June when they play away to the Central African Republic on June 2 and then play Ethiopia in Addis Ababa six days later.
Setbacks in both games would effectively kill off their chances and leave the last Group A match, at home to Botswana in September, a dead rubber.
Bafana have just two points from their first two qualifiers last year. Should they win the group, they face a playoff on a home and away basis in October and November. The 10 African qualifying group winners will be paired into five ties to determine the continent's representatives for Brazil.
It is also likely the qualifiers for the 2015 Nations Cup in Morocco will get under way this year, although the Confederation of African Football (Caf) is still trying to work out how they are going to fit the games into an already crowded international calendar.
The decision to move the hosting of the finals from every even year to every odd year was done with little thought as to how to fit in the qualifying competition when it overlaps with a World Cup year.
The draw for the qualifiers for the next Nations Cup is always made the day before the final of the preceding event, but there will be no draw in Johannesburg this Saturday while the Caf seeks a solution.
Igesund sees a bright future for the group of players who exited the Africa Nations Cup with a 3-1 penalties defeat against Mali in Saturday night's quarterfinal at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Bafana dominated much of the game, but were unable to overcome the more experien
ced Malians. Normal time ended 1-1, and the score remained that way after extra time.
Igesund said Bafana should be proud of largely matching the No3-ranked team in Africa, and 25th in the world. "From my point of view, I think we lost with pride, dignity and passion. As a coach you can only ask so much of your team and they gave everything," the coach said.
"We played probably the best game we've played for a while. Maybe we were a bit unfortunate, but it was a performance where you don't want to be losing the game when you play that well."
Mali were third-placed finishers in the last Nations Cup a year ago.
Bafana have not qualified for the past two tournaments.
Igesund said Bafana's performance in the tournament showed they had a bright future.Mali coach Patrice Carteron, meanwhile, says that patience was the key to beating South Africa. "It was an extremely tough match," Carteron said. "The South Africans posed a lot of problems in the first half and we had to change the tactics in the second half to get back into the match.
"They pressed us with a lot of energy and pace."But we knew we had to be patient and we had time to fight back. The South African team was very hard on us."
With Sapa
Source: bdlive.com
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