MagRush | October 14, 2019
A first-half penalty by Dean Furman and a second goal by Themba Zwane just at the stroke of half-time gave South Africa a win over Mali in the 25th Nelson Mandela Challenge at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth (PE), Eastern Cape, on Sunday.
Zwane was introduced five (5) minutes before the break due to Keagan Dolly’s injury-forced substitution. Mali pulled one back in the second half to make it 2-1 but it was not enough to salvage the loss.
Bafana Bafana’s new head coach Molefi Ntseki started his tenure on a winning slate. Talking after the friendly match, he said the players showed commitment winning against a team like Mali. It was a morale booster for playing against a quality team before the Ghana Afcon qualifying game (on Nov. 14, 2019), he said.
The Eagles coach Mohamed Magassouba said Mali will be fine going into the future for this game in particular they did not use the tried and tested players.
Noticeably, South African players battled with the imposing strength of the Malians. Ntseki emphasized the need for SA to work on dealing with physically strong teams.
South African Football Association President Danny Jordaan expressed his happiness for Ntseki and the players for a sterling performance in PE. Even though the stadium was not full, the mood looked jovial by supporters’ apparent rousing happiness.
The Ghana tie (away from home) will be followed by Sudan visiting SA for the November 19, 2019 Afcon-qualifier clash. Undoubtedly, these are the two fixtures that will really test Bafana Bafana under the new technical team.
Both SA goals were scored by midfielders. (They count too.) Generally, SA’s strikers have one of the lowest conversion rates in football. From 37% scoring rate in the 2017/2018 season to 30% last (2018/2019) season. This is a major bugbear for SA football.
Last season (2018/2019) three top PSL (SA) goalscorers managed a meager nine (9) goals – Thembinkosi Lorch was among them. (Zambian international Mwape Musonda led by 16 goals.) The previous season (2017/2018) only two SA strikers topped the goal-scoring charts with 11 apiece – Percy Tau and Rodney Ramagalela.
Of concern to the national team staff would be to get the team to create more chances for the forwards to convert. Should Percy Tau recover on time, the goal-scoring possibilities increase. Lebo Mothiba (striker) did not feature either due to injury. Kermit Erasmus replaced Bradley Grobler who led the charge upfront on Sunday.
Of relief is that Lorch is part of the strike-fold and did well on Sunday although he did not get into the scoresheet.