Santana’s surprise squad

Bafana Bafana coach Joel Santana never ceases to surprise.

On Thursday the Brazilian announced a 30-man provisional squad for the Confederations Cup that could be described as jaw-dropping.

Santana overlooked leading Premier Soccer League (PSL) goal scorer Richard Henyekane once again. The Golden Arrows striker has netted 18 goals, with a match remaining in the Absa premiership.

The coach opted for less-in-form forwards such as Katlego Mphela of Mamelodi Sundowns and Israel-based Thembinkosi Fanteni, who have not had a good season in their respective clubs. And to make matters worse Santana could not explain the omission of Henyekane. Early this year the Bafana mentor said the door was ‘open for on-form players”. But he seems to have failed to live up to his promise.

He told Thursday’s press conference: ‘I don’t want to discuss players who are not in the squad. If we start doing that we will have a list of 50 players. These are the best players that we have and even if I had selected 100 players I wouldn’t have pleased everyone.

‘The players I have picked are those that I have observed over the past 11 months and 80% of them fit into our game plan. We have the best available team.”

Some PSL coaches have questioned Santana’s selection criteria. Gordon Igesund, South Africa’s only coach to win the league title with four different teams, said he was surprised by the omission of Henyekane.

‘We have a goal-scoring problem in the country and yet you leave out our leading goal scorer. He scores in almost every match and has been in good form, but the coach prefers Fanteni. No one has seen Fanteni play and, even if the coach did, he only saw him play for 90 minutes. The coach is not doing the right thing,” said Igesund.

His sentiments were echoed by former Bafana Bafana coach and Mamelodi Sundowns caretaker coach Ted Dumitru, who said: ‘I’m very surprised at a number of omissions in the squad. I just want to get more information on how the players were selected and then I can comment further.”

Raymond Hack, chief executive of the South African Football Association, says people might have different views on the selection of players but they have selected the best players to represent the country.

However, Santana has to be commended for snubbing arguably the best striker available, Benni ­– McCarthy of Blackburn Rovers and formerly of Bafana Bafana. McCarthy has been in the news for repeatedly snubbing national team call-ups for the friendlies against Norway and Portugal. It seems that his latest disappearing act may also cost him a place in the team for the 2010 World Cup.

Another surprise inclusion was Lance Davids of SuperSport United. Despite his struggle to break into his club’s first team, Santana felt he was good enough for selection.

Santana surprisingly said: ‘If I had 10 more days I wouldn’t have selected Davids. He didn’t even feature on Wednesday night. I certainly would not have picked him if I had more time,” he said.

The locally based players will go into camp on May 13 for full medicals and will be joined by the overseas-based players on June 1. The squad will be cut from 30 players to 23 and announced before the Fifa deadline on June 4. The final squad will play a friendly against Poland two days’ later at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.

‘I want to assure players who will be dropped for the Confederations Cup that it does not mean they will not be considered for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. This applies to players who are also not in the provisional list. My advice is that all players must continue to work hard at their game for future consideration.”