What’s the first thing you do if you are a marked man or have a target on your back? You take cover. Surely that’s a no-brainer. A safe house should be a priority while you asses your nemesis in order to strategically hit back. Seems standard procedure to me. But we don’t all think alike, do we?
A classic example is beleaguered Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba, who was suspended by Safa for an alleged act of insubordination. In a video footage that emerged on Monday morning, the national team mentor is seen wagging his finger at SABC touchline reporter Kwena Moabelo and Bafana media officer Mathlomola Morake. The two were apparently trying to calm down a visibly upset Mashaba before he conducted a live and mandatory post-match interview following his side’s 2-1 victory over Senegal in a 2018 World Cup qualifier. It is believed all this took place in full view of Safa president Danny Jordaan, chief executive Dennis Mumble and several other top delegates at the match venue. I’ve been told Mashaba then went on to have a screaming match with Mumble in the tunnel.
That’s akin to a victim coming out of hiding and frantically waving at the hitman paid to take them down. It’s no secret that the Safa hierarchy is split on whether Mashaba is the right man for the job or not, especially after the coach’s failure to guide Bafana to qualifying for next year's Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Gabon. And Mashaba was well aware of this fact, but unfortunately proved he lacks the very same ‘match intelligence’ he is always lambasting his men for not possessing.
Any international coach. Wait, scratch that. Any coach worth his salt would not have misread the situation as poorly as Mashaba did, playing right into the hands of his detractors and the Safa officials he felt never had his back during a tough period in his tenure in recent months.
The win against Senegal was a new lease of life for the under pressure coach. Mashaba got that one right, but his reaction shortly after the final whistle put him on life support. It is too late to offer some words of wisdom now given that the coach faces a disciplinary hearing at Safa and may very well be on his way out.
In an ideal scenario, the sensible thing to do would have been to tell the TV interviewer as well as the local and foreign journalists he made wait for over 45 minutes inside the auditorium at the Peter Mokaba Stadium that he would keep his head down and focus on the long road to Russia, with Bafana’s next qualifier against Cape Verde in August next year.
South Africa were momentarily top of Group D with four points from two matches before Burkina Faso beat Cape Verde later on Saturday evening to take the lead thanks to a superior goal difference. Mashaba turned smiles into frowns at the weekend and now faces the possibility of watching the rest of the qualification campaign from the sidelines. Spare a thought for his technical team, who are likely to be sent packing along with the coach because of a moment of madness.
Follow Mazola Molefe on Twitter@superjourno
The Star