A Damning Diagnosis

A lot of people often wonder why a doctor starts their consultation with questions about your symptoms such as, have you been experiencing night sweat, insomnia, anxiety or depression feelings?

This leads to the doctor deciding what the actual problem is and therefore leads to a proper cure. Unlike a sangoma, a doctor does not know what your problem is as soon as you walk into his room.

It could seem then that it is of the outmost importance for us to do a proper diagnosis about our football before we claim Santana as the disease. In the qualifiers for the African cup of nation’s qualifiers we were walloped by the likes of Zimbabwe as well as Nigeria. We reacted to this loss by, amongst others, setting up the under 23 squad. In 1996, we gained host status of the Nations cup. Prior to this we prepared by playing some top quality opposition.   We won the most coveted cup in African football beating teams like Cameroon, Tunisia and Ghana along the way. From there on we celebrated and according to our imaginations became a world super-power.  Mediocrity was followed by another , and unfortunately it was celebrated. Do you know how many people packed O.R Tambo International to welcome Bafana after coming second at the 1998 Burkina Faso? Thousands!

It got worse in 2000 and Bafana were heroes again when they landed from Kumasi.  This was despite a semi-final finish. The head honchos at SAFA(The Nguni meaning), failed to see the symptoms of an apple becoming bad. To them there was still an area to chew on, therefore it didn’t matter that this apple was now no longer of its best quality.

I won’t mention 2004 in Egypt; because there is nothing to mention! No goal, no win, nothing!  And 2008? Depression I tell you.

If we fail it won’t be Santana that failed my football people it will be us as South Africans. Why will we fail? We ignored the symptoms.