Country before captain

BBK: Since Aaron Mokoena has developed a sudden passion for calling press conferences to clarify things, it would be interesting to see when the invite will arrive for his next one.

That's only if the Portsmouth defender strongly feels there is something worth clarifying in the titillating Sunday World report.

Just to recap, the tabloid carried a steamy story claiming Mokoena had a puttabite with a concubine of a Bafana teammate.

Seeing that the Axe had not released a statement by the time of going to press, one can safely assume that an invite will pop into the inbox. Tick, tock ...

The assumption is based on a precedent set last week Friday. Mokoena invited the media to a press conference to give us a chance to ask him questions about his axing from Bafana.

Nope, he responded when asked if he was bitter or angry at being dropped.

Yep, he was disappointed with the way the issue was handled.

How would he have preferred to see the matter being handled?

A phone call from coach Pitso Mosimane would have sufficed.

Perhaps he has a point. Perhaps Pitso allowed his prerogative to select the squad to cloud a small issue of courtesy that would not have created a brouhaha over the exclusion of one player as if he was the alpha and omega of the team.

All this ill-advised circus achieved was to make poor Aaron come across as grovelling for attention, especially when putting the timing into question.

Surely the fact that the conference came on the eve of the crucial Bafana Bafana qualifier against Egypt was a sheer coincidence?

Surely Mokoena is not that sinister as to want to steal the spotlight from the national team just because he was dropped?

This is not about an individual - his words, not mine.

I was at the press conference when Mosimane named his squad a fortnight ago.

Nowhere, I repeat, nowhere, did he say Aaron Mokoena will never play for Bafana again.

Instead, he did say that there will be times when he will call on Mokoena's experience.

That to me, the product of Bantu education that I am, means that there is a place for men like Mokoena and MacBeth Sibaya with Bafana in future.

Mosimane felt he could do without them on this occasion.

Make no mistake, captaining the country comes with its own prestige. It adds some gloss to the wearer of the armband, even if the skills of the skipper are not that silky.

The prestige helps with setting up things like foundations and raises a person's endorsement profile and such pleasant perks.

But don't make the mistake of thinking the captain is more important than the country.

Or even the coach.

Thanks to Katlego Mphela for getting the Egypt monkey off South Africa's back.

This is Mosimane's era.

Let him be allowed the time and space to do his work.

Let him be allowed to succeed or fail on his own terms.