The rise, fall and rise of Bafana Bafana offers valuable lessons for Kenyan game

Sometimes football resembles a fairy tale, and the story of South Africa’s rise, fall and rise again fits in this category.

In 1996, after several decades in the cold due to the Apartheid regime, virtually the whole of Africa united to back the Bafana Bafana, who were hosting the Nations Cup for the first time in its modern format.

With Nelson Mandela in the stands, South Africa enjoyed a level of support unseen since Kalusha Bwalya led his team to the 1994 Nations Cup, a year after the tragic crash which wiped out an entire generation of Zambian players in the Atlantic Ocean off Gabon.

Bafana did not disappoint. Led by the twinkle-toed John ‘Shoes’ Moshoeu, partnered by the calm Doctor Khumalo in midfield (think of an African version of the Xavi-Iniesta partnership in Spain’s peak years) and in a team that had the solid spine of captain Lucas Radebe, Neil Tovey (spotted these days as a pundit on SuperSport) and the talented if sometimes erratic Mark Fish, they surprised many by storming to the final and beating Tunisia to win the tournament. Most of Africa celebrated.

Those were the days before South Africans began mistreating immigrants and displaying an unearned sense of superiority through their ridiculous visa system.

(It is often forgotten that South Africa only hosted the tournament in place of Kenya, who had won the bid but the government refused to support the initiative because the Kenya Football Federation was seen as an opposition bastion)

PROGRESSIVELY WORSE
What happened after South Africa’s heroics in the 1996 tournament was strange enough. Bafana got progressively worse in a ladder-like step by step fashion.

In the next competition, in Burkina Faso, South Africa again reached the final but this time they came second after losing to Egypt in the final, despite Benni McCarthy’s excellent form throughout the tournament.

In 2000, they came third after being beaten in the semis while in 2002, continuing their steady decline, they were eliminated from the quarter finals by hosts Mali.

Things got worse in 2004 when they were kicked out in the first round. I attended the 2006 edition in Egypt and it was clear by that time that South Africa were no longer the toast of the continent.

Believing that their team would go all the way, the South African journalists in the press room boasted that they had booked their hotels for the whole month because their team would naturally progress to the final.

In fact, the South Africans lost all their group matches against Zambia, Guinea and Tunisia. They did worse than in 2004 this time, exiting the tournament without scoring a single goal, which saw the West Africans in the press room especially, throw a small party to celebrate the South Africans misfortunes.

BENCH STABILITY
Bafana Bafana, who again fared poorly in 2010, are finally back in good form, after they managed to negotiate a tricky qualifying group and consign champions Nigeria to the side-lines.

There are lessons to be drawn both from the fall and rise of Bafana Bafana. One of the biggest of these is the importance of stability on the bench.

At some point, South Africa were changing coaches at the rate of once every two years. They spent hundreds of millions of rand on journeymen coaches from abroad who did not deliver results.

Local coaches, such as their current manager, former player Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba were sacked on the flimsiest of grounds. In his case, for example, he decided to instil discipline and omitted foreign based stars such as Quinton Fortune who kept missing important training sessions.

The South African FA, whose leaders after the 1996 success had begun to believe they were more important than the playing unit, sacked him on the spot.

Mashaba has returned and proved his critics wrong. He restored confidence in the playing unit and got them playing coherently and without fear, and it is to be seen whether the administrators have learnt their lesson and will give him time on the job.

The second issue is something we talk about endlessly in Kenya but is nevertheless an inescapable ingredient of a successful footballing nation – the youth system.

THRIVING LEAGUE
At the press conference announcing the appointment of “Shakes” Mashaba in July 2014, the coach was not present because at the time he was in charge of the Under-20 team and they were away playing a series of friendlies in west Africa.

How often do the youth teams in Kenya meet for training let alone go abroad to test their strength?             

Is there any coherent strategy for recruitment into these youth teams or do people have to rely on networks, agents and coaches to get in?

As long as the youth set-up remains so weak or virtually non-existent, Kenyans will continue turning up to the stadium to cheer the senior team and leaving with long faces.

Finally, a thriving league is a key pipeline of players for teams such as South Africa.

Most clubs in SA can poach any Kenyan player because they will earn about five or 10 times as much there as they do in the Kenyan Premier League.

We need to ask why this is the case. Why don’t fans offer enough support to the teams which are not associated with ethnic communities?

How can clubs leverage on the county system – as Sofapaka have done by moving to Machakos and Tusker to Meru – to improve their support base?

COMPETITIVE LEAGUE
Is enough effort being put in to woo sponsors and advertisers? It is a strange thing that players are routinely poached from the Kenyan league with ease to play in countries with smaller economies than Kenya’s such as Tanzania and Rwanda.

Making the league competitive will offer coach Bobby Williamson a better chance of putting together a solid team.

It will be interesting to see how coach Mashaba’s charges fare at the next Nation’s Cup now that they have been drawn against World Cup teams Algeria and Ghana and a young and improving Senegal.

Whatever happens, at least the big man has restored Bafana to the top table and spared them the embarrassment they had grown used to, such as during the last qualifying round when they played for a draw at home instead of a victory against Sierra Leone and celebrated as if they had qualified, only to learn that in fact they had needed a victory to get to the tournament ahead of Niger.