'Bafana needs its old lions'

Tuesday night's shock 2-1 defeat to Zimbabwe has thrown Bafana coach Gordon Igesund's plans into disarray and left no room to experiment. The under-fire Igesund branded Bafana's performance "disjointed" and "low-level".

He has now vowed to only call up the big guns in his selection, backtracking on his promise to take risks with a new breed of players .

South Africa has failed to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil despite beating Botswana 4-1 in Durban.

In the build-up to the clash against Zimbabwe's Warriors in Orlando Stadium, Igesund said he was ready to "produce future champions". But having seen his players struggle against Zimbabwe, who fielded the bulk of their South Africa-based stars - including goalscorers Knowledge Musona and Cuthbert Malajila - Igesund backpedalled.

"As soon as we start playing our next friendly matches, I am going to call up all the experienced players, including those based overseas, and then throw in one or two youngsters.

"After a game like this, you can see that some players have a lot of work to do. If you compare how a player like [Bongani] Zungu played against Botswana coming off the bench and how he did against Zimbabwe having started, you can see his level dropped and he never improved," said Igesund.

Igesund hopes to start on a clean slate ahead of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco and possibly qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia if he is still in the hot seat .

"Zungu should be one of our star players going into 2015 and the World Cup in Russia, but he won't improve playing with this lot right now. When he has Kagisho Dikgacoi and Dean Furman around to carry him, then he is brilliant.

"I now know who is not good enough for this team and I will encourage some of these players to keep doing well for their clubs."

Igesund named some of the players he would focus on developing.

"For me, the likes of Ayanda Patosi and Kamohelo Mokotjo are at a much higher level than the guys we had for this match, and those are the players I will be calling up in future," Igesund said, adding, "We need older players now to lead the way."