Shakes: We have achieved so much

Cape Town - Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba says he is pleased with the progress the side has made under his leadership. 

Bafana ended off a largely uninspiring week with a 1-1 draw to Ghana in an international friendly in Durban on Tuesday night, just three night's after drawing 1-1 away at Burkina Faso in their first 2018 World Cup qualifier. 

It wasn't the best start for Bafana, who also have Senegal and Cape Verde alongside them in Group D. 

The winner of the group will qualify for the 2018 World Cup win Russia. 

Mashaba, who took over as Bafana coach in July 2014, says he is pleased with the strides that have been made despite Bafana failing to get out of the group stages of Afcon 2015 and then failing to qualify for Afcon 2017 at all.

"When we took over in 2015 nobody expected us to qualify for Afcon in Equatorial Guinea," Mashaba said.

"That alone gave us confidence. We played very well.

"We would have loved to qualify for Afcon 2017. Unfortunately we did not, and it all came down to one game ... that Mauritania game.

"We wanted to qualify because that would have confirmed our vision for 2022. But there are still the qualifiers now to make sure we qualify for Russia. I think that alone will bring a big change in terms of players wanting to play for the national team and fans wanting to support the national team."

Mashaba added that there was not much he or anybody could do about the naysayers who have issues with his leadership and the current state of the national team.

"Some of these things become habit to people. Because they boo you today, they’ve got to boo you every day," the coach said.

"There isn’t much that we can do, but I will always cross my fingers that if a player comes on that he delivers as expected.

"We have achieved so much. If we could get a pen and paper, we could definitely show how much we have achieved so far."

Bafana are next in action when they host Senegal in a crucial World Cup qualifier on November 12 in Polokwane.