Bafana seek top gear as Avram Grant arrives in Durban to push Zambia

After their struggles to get going in the Cosafa Cup group stages, Bafana Bafana will need to look past their difficulties and aim for top gear in a mission to outclass difficult Zambia in the semifinals.  

The double header semifinals at King Zwelithini Stadium in Durban, where entrance is free for supporters, see Malawi meet Lesotho at 3pm before Bafana and Zambia battle it out at 6pm.  

Understrength Bafana, made up of fringe players and stars at crossroads in their careers, are aiming to win the Cosafa Cup for South Africa, some to prove they have still got it, and other to possibly help earn themselves employment elsewhere or caps for Hugo Broos'  frontline selection.  

Standing between them and that goal are the competition’s defending champions Zambia, who put one up a hell of a show to make it to the knockouts.  

Zambia opened this year’s tournament with a loss to impressive Malawi and had to fight hard against improved Comoros and Seychelles to proceed to the knockouts as one of the best runners up from the three groups.  

Against Bafana, Chipolopolo will be boosted by the presence of their national team coach Avram Grant, who arrived in Durban on Wednesday. Grant’s assistant coach Moses Sichone is in charge of the Cosafa team while the former Chelsea and West Ham United manager supervises from a distance.   

Bafana may have finished top of group A, but they have not been overly impressive in their matches against Namibia (1-1), Botswana (2-1) and Eswatini (2-1).  

It took blood and sweat for the Morena Ramoreboli coached team to achieve those results as they fought back from a goal down in all of them, and some of those fights have been nervy.  

While South Africa’s captain for the mission Lyle Lakay admitted that was a concern, the 2021-22 Premier Soccer League (PSL) defender of the season pointed out the team did not spend much time together before the tournament.  

Lakay was not even part of the preliminary squad. Some PSL clubs’ refusal to release players saw him being roped in at the last minute.   

“Everybody knows it is the first time the guys have been playing together and usually with the first game you can see that. But I think after we had the first game under the belt, you could see we kind of got to know one another,” Lakay said.  

“Of course, some of us also come from the same clubs and have played together before.  

“We are making the job harder for ourselves. I was joking with the guys that maybe we need to start the game being 1-0 down because in all the three games after we went 1-0 down there was a reaction.  

“You saw the fight, the hunger and if only we can start games in the same manner, on the front foot from first whistle instead of waiting for teams to score and react.  

“But having said that, there are also positives we can take like the fighting spirit. I think out of the three games, we showed more against Eswatini.”  

Players such as Shaune Mogaila, Keegan Allan, Rowan Human, goalkeeper Jetren Barr, Iqraam Rayners, Thabo Cele and Tshegofatso Mabasa have been excellent in Durban.

Support independent journalism by subscribing to TimesLIVE Premium. Just R20 for the first month.