Africa is a Country

Like any supporter of South Africa’s national football team, I agonize over the team’s recent mixed fortunes. That the World Cup is two years away increases my anxiety. Luckily the team did not have to qualify by virtue of hosting the competition. I won’t say much about football administration in South Africa. After all this is the association that fired as national coach Philippe Troussier and later Carlos Queiroz because they apparently weren’t good enough. That Queiroz later became Real Madrid’s coach and was Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson’s right-hand man in Moscow tonight as the team won the European Champions League final or that Troussier afterwards took Japan to the World Cup, meant nothing to them. It has not helped that recently the well-paid current national coach, the Brazilian World Cup winning Carlos Alberto Parreira, had to resign (he cited family reasons). It also hurts that the quality in the local league has not improved (check their performances in continental competitions as a yardstick) or that Bafana Bafana’s (that’s the team moniker) most reliable performers are not doing so well now. Star-player Benni McCarthy has basically ceded the striker’s berth at Blackburn Rovers to Paraguayan Rocky Santa-Cruz, while his club-teammate Aaron Mokoena also rarely make the starting line-up. Another key player of the last few years, striker Sibusiso Zuma (who inspired Kenny G-scored tributes from FC Copenhagen fans on Youtube) is also aging fast (He now plays for a Armenia Bielefeld, a mid-level club in the Bundesliga, where he’s joined by another homeboy Siyabonga Nkosi). The only bright spark of January’s African Nations Cup in Ghana was Belgian club Brugge’s midfielder Elrio van Heerden. He’s a star in the Belgian league as this this video shows. Van Heerden’s goals in the Nations Cup against Angola and Senegal) point to his pedigree. But the coach will have to supplement these European regulars (well, bench-warmers) with new talent. And in case he may want to look beyond Europe for inspiration. It may sound blasphemous, but perhaps the national coaching staff should look at Major League Soccer for inspiration. Look, I’ve been to some games of the Red Bulls and the quality is not bad. For one it is attracting quality players like David Beckham, Juan Pablo Angel and the Mexican star Cuauhtémoc Blanco, among others. The coach may find the underpaid (he makes $17,7000 a year) midfielder Daniel Borman (pictured above), who plays for New York Red Bulls. The New York Times football writer (or soccer writer as Jack Bell is known here in the US) this week described Borman as a “quick, slassing left-footed player in the Demarcus Beasley mould.” Borman creates plays for Angel so that’s a nice complement. Borman, from Cape Town, also has good football genes: his father is Daniel, played professionally in South Africa. For more on Borman’s football prowess and for some earlier praise from his teammate and US national player, striker Jozi Altidore (who’ll probably end up at a top European club). See here and here.