As the charismatic, 41-year-old Jurgen Klinsmann on Wednesday stunned about 82-million Germans by declaring he was stepping down as national soccer coach after a tenure of two years, South African observers in Germany gathering ideas for the hosting of the 2010 World Cup were echoing the sentiment: ”Where can Bafana find another Klinsmann?”
It is designed as an ongoing, sometimes routine meeting between President Thabo Mbeki and his team of advisers on the one hand, and the captains of South African industry on the other. But when all the camaraderie is completed at Wednesday’s get-together, Mamelodi Sundowns president Patrice Motsepe intends to exhort big businesses to support South African soccer to the hilt.
The fizz went out of the Coca-Cola Cup competition on Thursday when the international soft-drink giant elected not to renew a lucrative five-year sponsorship contract with the Premier Soccer League (PSL). The tournament had already been penned in on the PSL’s fixture list for the 2006/07 season.
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A group of 350 ”pioneers” leave for Germany on Tuesday as the advance guard of approximately 2 500 South African soccer fans. ”We’ll be handling the arrangements for approximately  1500 of the total number,” said Nazeer Camaroodeen, managing-director of the company which acts as the travel agent for the South African Football Association.
Shaun Bartlett is being meticulously targeted by both current Premier Soccer League champions Mamelodi Sundowns and Absa Cup holders Kaizer Chiefs — and anyone believing it is a fait accompli that the all-time leading Bafana Bafana goal scorer and former captain will land up with Amakhosi could be jumping the gun.
A report this week that South African Football Association (Safa) technical committee chairperson Sturu Pasiya held face-to-face talks with Portugal and former Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari on the issue of Bafana Bafana coach for the 2010 World Cup was on Wednesday described as a ”pie in the sky”.
South African Football Association (Safa) CEO Raymond Hack on Tuesday dismissed a ”hate campaign” to discredit him as ”mischievous and deceitful” — and said there is no substance to reports that there has been a petition from staff members calling for his dismissal.
Trevor Phillips, ”The British Bulldog”, will leave the Premier Soccer League (PSL) when his contract expires in November — muzzled, it would seem, by what the forthright CEO described on Monday as a post with ”enormous responsibility and relatively limited authority”. Phillips believes he will be leaving the PSL ”on a sound footing”.
The embarrassment of South African soccer continued unabated at the National Stadum in Gaborone on Sunday as Bafana Bafana crashed out of the Cosafa Cup after a penalty shoot-out defeat against Fifa’s 103rd ranked Botswana. A tepid quarterfinal embodied with little excitement or inspiration ended goalless — with the team known as the Zebras showing their stripes by netting all six penalty kicks.
After effectively the most dismal sequence of results since the formative year of Bafana Bafana in 1993, caretaker coach Pitso Mosimane says his squad have no alternative but to ”play for pride” when this year’s Cosafa Cup campaign is launched against Swaziland in Gaborone on Saturday.