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Cape Town - South Africa’s favourite football analyst, Marks Maponyane, has backed Shakes Mashaba’s decision to call up Thamsanqa Gabuza to the national team.
Tokelo Rantie is the latest player to drop out of the Bafana Bafana squad this afternoon, due to wedding commitments, and it is fair to say that the nation has been surprised that it was not Kermit Erasmus who was called in to replace him.
Maponyane was not all too phased as he told Sport24 that Mashaba would surely have good reasons for the decision to elect Gabuza.
"Shakes is always going to be controversial but given what Gabuza would bring to the team compared to what Erasmus would bring he was clearly going for the target man," he said.
“Gabuza has really been playing as well as Erasmus recently by the way.
"And it’s not for the first time that he has been called up, I don’t know what this hullabaloo is all about.”
“Shakes has said that the strike force is the worst performing area but at the end of the day he has said yes I do have other players in the mould of Kermit but I need to make a decision between the two, and Gabuza becomes the option because of what he can give as plan B.”
Erasmus tweeted “I’m not no backup player #KE95”, leading many to believe that it was in fact Erasmus who turned down a Bafana call up and not another snub on behalf of Mashaba.
