Pitso gets a stay of execution

LIKE a patient on a life-support system, Pitso Mosimane is living on borrowed time. Or is it referee's optional time? One thing's for sure - there'll be no extra time.

Some Safa vultures have dusted off their dinner jackets and are circling the beleaguered Bafana Bafana coach, ready to devour his flesh. Here's a newsflash: Safa were set to fire Mosimane had he lost to Senegal last month.

Hardly surprising, I know. But this newspaper has it on good authority that the wise men at Safa were ready to jettison the man called Jingles had Bafana been mauled by a predominantly under-23 Cubs of Terranga.

In public, his shameless bosses have shielded him. But in private, some have started to ask the question: if he could not take us to Afcon, what hope do we have that he will qualify the country for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil?

It is against this background that the bumbling Safa bosses were ready to pull the trigger and they had already put out feelers for a possible replacement.

Once Mosimane had vamoosed, his successor at SuperSport United, Gavin Hunt, was going fill the vacant Bafana post.

But the goalless draw with Senegal earned Mosimane a stay of execution, though the breathing space should not be a cause for celebration in the Mosimane household or for his shrinking fan base.

The axe is still hovering over that hardekop of the man for whom the bells will certainly toll if he fumbles against Ethiopia in June.

Eight games without a win is not that different from Joel Natalino Santana's eight straight losses, which is why his name is fast becoming mud with fans and administrators alike.

And Mosimane already shares a similar - albeit dubious honour - with Santana: failing to qualify Bafana for the African Nations Cup.

So, our everyone-is-to-blame-but-himself coach cannot afford any slip-up and has no choice but to get South Africa's campaign for the 2014 World Cup off to a flying start.

Bafana are expected to bury the Black Lions in an avalanche - not quite in the way Sundowns pulverised Powerlines, but something along those lines. A draw would be deemed a defeat. By the time Mosimane dives for the bag of excuses, he will discover it is empty because he has used them all up.

By the time he pulls out ammunition from his bag of insults and fires a salvo at journalists, we won't care because we will be writing "former coach" in front of his name.

Two players who can save his behind by reinforcing his misfiring strike force are Erwin Isaacs (five goals, two more than Siyabonga Nontshinga) and Eleazar Rodgers (seven goals, two fewer than Katlego Mphela, who, however, last scored donkey's years ago).

It's amazing that the Santos duo haven't been given a fair chance despite their decent scoring ratio.

Carlos Alberto Parreira snubbed them. Santana shunned them. Pitso John Mosimane is overlooking them.

The referee's optional time is running out for Mosimane and no extra minutes will be added on this time around.