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Shakes explains SA's problems

Cape Town - The shortage of quality strikers in South Africa is not something that can be fixed at international level.

That is the view of Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba, who saw his side come from behind to beat Angola 2-1 in an international friendly at Cape Town Stadium on Tuesday.

While the result was most welcome for the South Africans, Mashaba bemoaned his side’s finishing after the match.

And, when pressed on finding solutions to what seems like South African football’s constant nemesis, Mashaba opened up, suggesting that rectifying the problem was out of his hands.

“A coach that will come to you at a national level and say that he’s got a solution for scoring goals would not be telling you the truth,” said Mashaba.

“National teams, when we have a fixture, you’re supposed to have five days … but in the first day players are still arriving. Sometimes you sleep in camp here with only six, seven players and none of them are a striker.

“The second day, they’re still arriving. This needs to be addressed from another level. It’s not only the national teams that are complaining about a lack of goals; it’s in the PSL, it’s in the NFD. That’s where the problem should be addressed. Actually, even there it’s a little bit late. You’ve got to go further down.”

Mashaba added that South Africa would continue to experience goal scoring problems until they were blessed with a naturally gifted finisher with an eye for goal.

“In the national team it (goal scoring problem) is going to be there, until you get a striker with in-born striking qualities, then he will score goals for you … you won’t have problems,” said Mashaba.

“That is why I indicated … I said, playing without a player like (Tokelo) Rantie in our team, it causes problems up front because Rantie creates, assists … he creates chances for himself. When he plays there, no defender is comfortable. Imagine you had three Ranties in your team.”

Orlando Pirates striker Thamsanqa Gabuza did find himself on the score sheet against Angola, but not after he had squandered a couple of good opportunities.

Gabuza was also the man given the goal scoring responsibility in last week’s 0-0 draw to lowly Gambia in Bafana’s AFCON 2017 qualifying opener, but Mashaba said it was important to keep faith in players who are struggling.

“You can practice and practice and practice but on the day of the match it depends on how big your big match temperament is,” said Mashaba.

“Are you prepared to take risks? Because most of the time when players get to that area they think ‘if I miss, what’s going to happen?’ You don’t have time to decide.

“I would like everyone to understand this. We are not going to be substituting players because of the previous performance. It’s dangerous because we might be killing a player. That’s why we gave him the chance to go on again and he did well, he scored a goal.”

Bafana are next in action on Saturday when they take on Mauritius in a CHAN qualifier. 

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