Burkinabe no match for sharp Bafana
Burkina Faso were supposed to give Bafana Bafana a good warm-up before their Afcon qualifier, but the expensive Burkinabe arrived depleted. Burkina Faso were supposed to give Bafana Bafana a good warm-up before their Afcon qualifier, but the expensive Burkinabe arrived depleted.
It was an evening for wearing your winter boots at a chilly Coca-Cola Park on Wednesday. And for Bafana Bafana, it was an evening for filling your boots, as they came up against a Burkina Faso side that played like it might have been assembled from the streets of nearby Hillbrow in the afternoon.
The South African Football Association spent R530 000 to secure the supposed fourth best side in Africa for this game, the West African ‘powerhouse’ seen as ideal preparation for next month’s 2012 African Nations Cup qualifier in Niger.
But instead of welcoming a ‘powerhouse,’ they had every right to feel duped, as a featherweight of a Burkinabe team turned up in Johannesburg, shorn of most of their major stars.
Coach Paolo Duarte was able to train with only ten players on Tuesday evening, while five more were drafted in from one club, ASFA Yennenga of Ouagadougou, arriving in the early hours of Wednesday morning. In the end they provided Bafana Bafana with nothing more than a half decent practice match.
Pitso Mosimane would surely have wished for a trickier test, but can hardly complain at the result, which will probably see Bafana gain a hefty boost in the next Fifa World Rankings.
The match also saw a first start in Bafana colours for Thulani Serero, and the 20-year-old Ajax Amsterdam whizz-kid gave glimpses of his sublime talent, with one magical pass releasing Katlego Mphela for Bafana’s third goal.
Against statuesque defending, it was a comfort blanket of a debut, but with Serero in attack, and Daylon Claasen and Andile Jali surging through the midfield, a rather poor crowd at least got a glimpse of what Bafana might just look like in 2014.
There was also another brace of goals for Katlego Mphela, apparently unable to find a club in Europe, but continually brilliant for Bafana, having now netted 21 times in 42 appearances.
Siphiwe Tshabalala could well become the permanent captain of Bafana if Steven Pienaar’s injury woes continue, and he also contributed his first international goal on Wednesday since that scorcher against Mexico in the opening match of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
All in all, for those that could afford to turn up, it was entertaining fare, even if the opposition at times played like a set of training cones.
Safa’s quite ridiculous pricing for this game (tickets were between R50 and R200) may well have contributed to the host of empty seats, a matter the organisers will surely have to look at in the future.
They could certainly try and recoup some of the funds lost in ticket sales here, by demanding their money back from their Burkina Faso counterparts, for bringing such a shambles of a team.
Bafana showed enough to suggest, even against such opposition, that they continue to improve under Pitso Mosimane. They were, after all, themselves missing several regular starters.
As for an indicator of what the side could face against Niger in Niamey at the start of September, however, this was really no use at all.