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Cape Town - Shakes Mashaba’s assistant coach, Thabo Senong, believes that South African coaches have to improvise to get the best out of the talented players that they have at their disposal.
Bafana beat Mauritius 2-0 on Sunday in CHAN qualifying to advance 5-0 on aggregate, doing so with a largely inexperienced team and Senong puts this down to consistency in their tactical approach.
“We’ve used the same approach against Angola and now Mauritius,” Senong told Sport24.
Senong says that Mahsaba’s approach is one in which he seeks to make maximum use of the technical talents of his players but admits that South African coaches have to be somewhat inventive to overcome the players’ inherent flaws that are a result of the country’s substandard youth structures.
“For the coach to implement these tactics it is going to require players who are highly technical and have the right skills but we know that at times our players can be a little bit erratic.
“Our players are very, very talented but we know that many of them were not properly nurtured so we have to improvise as coaches to utilise the strengths of our players and improve on their weaknesses.
“Tactically we have emphasised the importance of realising moments, because there are two forms of attacking: you can either attack when the opposition are organised or when they are not.
“When your opposition is unorganised, this is where the players have to realise those moments and capitalise.
“But when the defensive make-up is reinforced which is sometimes called ‘parking-the-bus’ it is then very important to keep possession patiently,” he concluded.
Bafana Bafana showed patience in their build-up play against Angola in a friendly a few weeks ago although the passing was slightly slow; they displayed an increased tempo to their game in the two legs over Mauritius which saw them exploit the islanders’ scrambled defence.
