Why Baxter and his Bafana charges still have a long road ahead

26 March 2018 - 15:40 By Mark Gleeson
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Bafana Bafana head coach Stuart Baxter.
Bafana Bafana head coach Stuart Baxter.
Image: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

Bafana Bafana securing victory in the four-nations tournament in Zambia in their first assignment of 2018 will go a long way towards making up for the bitter disappointment of World Cup qualification failure last November.

But coach Stuart Baxter and his charges still have a long road ahead over the next 12 months.

Priority for Baxter will be to secure qualification for the 2019 African Nations Cup finals in Cameroon.

The rest of the qualification campaign will continue in September‚ more than a year after it started in the best possible way for South Africa with their 2-0 win in Nigeria last June.

That unexpected victory‚ at the start of Baxter’s second tenure‚ held out hopes of much bigger things to come from Bafana but within months they had flopped against the Cape Verde Islands in the World Cup and blown any chance of going to Russia.

Further defeats to Senegal left Baxter’s job in peril just six months after he took over from Shakes Mashaba.

Failure to qualify for the Nations Cup will surely spell the end of him but it seems almost impossible to miss out.

Firstly‚ the three points away in Nigeria are priceless and likely not be to be emulated by the other two countries in the same qualifying group – Libya and the Seychelles.

Secondly the field for the finals next year has been extended from 16 to 24 teams‚ which means that two countries from each qualifying group go to the Nations Cup tournament.

Nigeria and South Africa will be runaway favourites and must be considered too strong for Libya and the Seychelles.

A third factor in South Africa’s favour is the on-going ban on Libya playing home matches because of the unstable security situation in the north African country.

It does not look like being fixed anytime soon‚ so South Africa will go to a neutral venue for the last qualifier in the group.

They first meet Libya at home in September‚ then play the Seychelles home and away in the space of five days in October and then host Nigeria in November.

Baxter‚ and Bafana supporters‚ will be hoping that qualification has long been secured by then.

The last qualifying match for the 2019 Nations Cup finals is in March next year‚ away against Libya.

Usually this is played either in Cairo or Tunisia.

Having missed out on the last Nations Cup‚ in Gabon last year‚ it would be a positive to see South Africa back at the tournament.

But the reality of the expanded field means it is now easier than ever to qualify.

Just under half of the membership of the Confederation of African Football now get to go to the Nations Cup finals‚ so failure to line-up at Cameroon 2019 would be seen as even more calamitous than the recent embarrassments suffered against the tiny Cape Verde.

Next up for Bafana and Baxter is the Cosafa Cup in early June - the tournament will be played in Polokwane - but it is not clear whether he will be able to take a full-strength squad as he did to Zambia last week.

The South African Football Association have a long history of being poorly planned for the event and then scurrying around at the last minute looking for players.

Should that happen again this year‚ it would not surprise anyone.

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