SAZI HADEBE | Come on, Bafana, bring SA some happiness. You know you can do it

Former Bafana Bafana captain Neil Tovey was spot on this week in saying SA football is hungry for some happiness.

Compared to the Springboks, who have given SA rugby fans a lot to enthuse about since 1995, SA football lags way behind in the happiness stakes.

And yet Bafana can produce a bit of hope by the end of this weekend. Yes, they would have not yet qualified to appear in their fourth World Cup, but success in their next two 2022 World Cup qualifiers would take them closer to achieving that.

It’s a mammoth week for Hugo Broos and his side, starting with the matter of beating Zimbabwe at the FNB Stadium on Thursday night.

It’s easy to discount The Warriors because they’re out of the running to qualify for Qatar next year, only using the remaining two qualifiers against SA and Ethiopia to prepare for next year’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Cameroon.

A team playing for that sort of pride is always dangerous, because it’s free of the tension and pressure of winning at all costs. The Warriors will gladly take the win but even a draw away from home will taste as sweet as victory.

Everyone will be glued to their television screens on Thursday and Sunday nights to see if Broos’s team have the steel to withstand Ghana, the only team in the group who can still mess up Bafana’s hope of getting through to the playoffs.

That’s the Zimbabwean team Bafana must beat tomorrow to remain in the race for Qatar. Our team can’t rely on Ethiopia, a side they’ve beaten twice in these qualifiers, to do them a favour by beating Ghana at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Thursday.

Like Zimbabwe, Ethiopia can’t qualify for next year’s World Cup, but will gladly use these qualifiers to prepare for what will be their first appearance in the Afcon since 2013.

I like the way Broos has engaged with the media regarding Bafana’s remaining two qualifiers. The forthright 69-year-old Belgian has emphasised the importance of his team not looking beyond the Zimbabwe game.

Bafana need the three points against Zimbabwe on Thursday to play their final Group G qualifier needing at least a point to proceed to the final round of playoffs made of the other nine group winners.

SA doesn’t often beat Zimbabwe. The Warriors were one of the first teams, alongside Nigeria, to embarrass Bafana by beating them by four goals shortly after their return to international football in 1992.

The first meeting between these teams took place in August 1992, and was a qualifier for the 1994 Afcon that Bafana failed to qualify for. Tovey’s team suffered a humiliating 4-1 defeat in Harare.

In total there have been 16 meetings between the two sides, with Bafana winning just six and The Warriors seven. The other three internationals finished in stalemates.

That history will be cast aside on Thursday, as Broos has got his team believing they can beat anyone from the moment he started working with Bafana in May.

Bafana’s 1-0 home victory over Ghana in their second qualifier in September was a game changer. It got people talking and taking interest in a team they hadn’t bothered to watch in recent times because of their awful results.

Now everyone will be glued to their television screens on Thursday and Sunday nights to see if Broos’s team have the steel to withstand Ghana, the only team in the group who can still mess up Bafana’s hope of getting through to the playoffs.

I emphasise the next round, because some people have already started making plans to go to Qatar to support Bafana next year. It’s all good, but in my book premature.

It’s like playing the lottery or expecting Eskom to keep our lights on at this stage. I wouldn’t advise anyone to book tickets just yet, given the team’s history.

But Broos has given us hope and has been consistently telling his players that it’s all in their hands. The young team is indeed capable of following in the footsteps of the Tovey-led team, which qualified for the 1998 World Cup in France, just two years after winning the Afcon on home soil.

When Tovey says our football has endured unhappiness, he knows what he’s talking about. He and his former Bafana teammates celebrated winning the Afcon in front of Nelson Mandela 25 years ago.

No other democratic president has had that joy. Instead Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa hoisted the Rugby World Cup with the Springboks at the Stade de France in France in 2007 and in Tokyo, Japan in 2019, respectively.

But the late Madiba still beat them both because he also lifted the Webb Ellis trophy with the Springboks and their charismatic captain Francois Pienaar in 1995, before handing the Afcon trophy to Tovey at the Soccer City the following year.

Kgalema Motlanthe was SA’s caretaker president between September 2008 and May 2009, hardly enough time to lift any trophy with one of our big national teams.

But just as there was a lot of looting and plundering of the state resources in the Jacob Zuma era between 2009 and 2018, Bafana and Springboks performances during that time — best described by others, including Ramaphosa, as nine wasted years — were awful.

Bafana even achieved an embarrassing record, by becoming the first host nation to fail to progress to the second round of a World Cup in 2010. Not even the presence of the ailing Madiba in the opening match against Mexico could inspire them. They played a 1-1 draw. 

Tovey is right when he says our football needs happiness. The whole country, which has been bruised and battered by Mandela’s no longer glorious movement, can do with happiness too.

So, go and get them Bafana Bafana. We’re, all 60-million plus of us, fully behind you.