When is a Bafana Bafana friendly international a training game? When the South African Football Association (Safa) says so, it would seem.
Four years ago, Bafana suffered the ignominy of losing a friendly international against Lesotho before a vibrant, capacity crowd at the Lesotho National Stadium — with Safa proclaiming after the match that it was no more than a training runaround.
You could have fooled the excited, 12 000-strong crowd that had crammed into the stadium and were over the moon in the firm belief that their team had indeed lowered the colours of their ”big brother” neighbours in a fully fledged international.
This time, at least, it appears Safa is not waiting for the result before announcing a decision, with CEO Raymond Hack revealing on Friday that the proposed match-up against Swaziland on March 13 will be classified as a training venture.
New coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has called for the match as a warm-up for the away African Nations Cup qualifier against Chad later in the month.
”Fifa will not receive any notification of the match against Swaziland being an official international,” added Hack, ”and its status, therefore, will be that of a training game.”
Just as well, it would seem, with Swaziland delaying ad nauseam their decision on whether they intend accepting the invitation to take on Bafana in a training game.
What is more, Bafana will be fielding a team made up solely of locally based players, thereby minimising the importance of the match. Safa is also unsure of the exact venue if, in fact, the game materialises.
”It will be in Johannesburg,” ventured Hack, ”but we are not sure exactly where in Johannesburg.” — Sapa