With less than two months to go to the World Cup, only two of the 25 Bafana Bafana players based overseas are active.
The Bafana Bafana technical team have been running a programme for the past year that has been monitoring players based overseas and the weekly reports on the 25-odd players have been disappointing to Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Parreira.
Parreira, speaking at a press conference to announce the squad that left for Germany this week, painted a gloomy picture of the fitness levels of most of the key players who were expected to carry the hopes of the host nation when the World Cup kicks off at Soccer City on June 11.
“We get weekly reports on 25 players who are based overseas and it is a great concern that only Steven Pienaar [Everton] and Tsepo Masilela [Maccabi Haifa] are playing regularly,” said Parreira.
He revealed that most of the players plying their trade outside South Africa were injured, relegated to the bench, making cameo appearances or not being picked to play for their respective clubs.
Matlhomola Morake, Bafana’s media officer, told the Mail & Guardian by phone from the team base in Germany: “This is the reason we have shifted our focus to the local-based players by holding intensive training camps in Brazil and Germany.
“The coach is concerned that the experienced players are getting very little game time at their respective clubs in Europe so close to the World Cup,” Morake said.
The flickering beacon of hope, Pienaar, is having a remarkable season at Goodison Park where the skilled Bafana Bafana midfielder has the second-best scoring record with seven goals. He is already in contention to win the club’s player of the season award, while two of his goals are tipped for the goal of the season award. More pleasing to Parreira is that Pienaar has made 34 appearances for Everton.
During last year’s Confederations Cup, Masilela warned his teammates to be careful when making career moves to Europe. He said that match fitness would be crucial to Bafana’s progress in the World Cup. The defender is one of only five regular foreigners in his Israeli side.
But the same cannot be said of his national teammates who made the move overseas and hope to be part of the football jamboree in their home country.
Elrio van Heerden was an almost forgotten figure at Blackburn Rovers until former Sivasspor coach Muhsin Ertugral took him to Turkey in January and Kagisho Dikgacoi has been plagued by injuries since his move to Fulham last year and his minor appearances at the club have seldom amounted to more than 20 minutes at a time.
These problems pale into insignificance when Parreira looks at the sorry sight of his strike force — quality options are very thin both abroad and at home. At the moment only Mamelodi Sundowns hitman Katlego Mphela seems assured of making the final 23.
Finding a partner for him upfront has been aggravated by the circumstances of the two obvious choices — Benni McCarthy and Bernard Parker. McCarthy ended a frustrating spell at Blackburn Rovers when he joined West Ham for £2,5-million in January. Parreira had warned him that he could miss the World Cup if he did not get regular game time.
But the switch has yielded very little results. He is still a fringe player at a Hammers facing relegation and spends more time on the bench than on the field of play. Worse still, the Bafana striker has not scored a goal since his well-publicised move.
Parker on the other hand has played only 14 league games for Netherlands club FC Twente, including six minutes in the last match out of a possible 32. Like McCarthy he has still to score. His only success this season is two goals in cup competitions.
But amid the gloom about his foreign legion, there was some good news for Parreira on Sunday. Bafana captain Aaron Mokoena put on a sterling performance in the English FA Cup semifinal when he marshalled the Portsmouth defence that shut out Tottenham.
Mokoena, who has endured a lot of criticism back home, was solid at the back as the Pompey rearguard kept the marauding England front line of Peter Crouch and Jermaine Defoe in check. Although already relegated, Mokoena and his teammates stunned Spurs 2-0 to book a place in the final, which should raise hope that the captain may be back to his best in time to lead Bafana Bafana successfully.