I have a dream

Martin Luther King once made a speech, “I have a dream”. Like him, I too have a dream. It is actually a rip off of the clergyman’s work, as it were.

Here goes: I am not happy to support our nationals soccer team, Bafana Bafana. They will go down in history as the worst national team in the history of our nation.

In 1996, a great national team was born at the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) when the side was anointed as the kings of African football. This momentous achievement came as a great beacon of hope to millions of football supporters, that Bafana would reign forever. It came as a welcome relief after years in the sport wilderness due to the apartheid system. The team of ’96 had us dreaming of their team dominating the African football scene and going on to lift the FIFA World Cup.

Now, 18 years later, the dream is dead and it died a painful and embarrassing death at Athlone Stadium. The team is no longer champions, but chumps of the continent. It is languishing in the quagmire of football rankings. It is time we dramatize a shameful and pathetic state of the team.

We shall march to SAFA House in Soweto to cash a cheque. When Clive Backer steered Neil Tovey to glory, he was building a solid foundation on which every future national team was to fall heir. The success of 1996 showed that we could win the Afcon-, u/17- and u/20 World Cups, Olympic gold medal, Cosafa and Chan with relative ease. At that time, Barker had little resources and he achieved big success. Gordon Igesund has the 2010 FIFA World Cup windfall, big technical staff and big everything, but has achieved little results.

We must refuse to belief that the bank of talent is bankrupt. We must refuse to belief that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of talent in KaNyamazane, Daantjie, Stonehenge, Nelsville, Kamhlushwa and other hotbed areas. And so, we’ve come to the HQ of the beautiful game in the country to cash a cheque, a cheque that will give us upon demand the joys and pleasures of watching the national team represent the nation with pride, honour and for the side to win big tournaments again.

Fellow football supporters, let us not wallow in the valley of despair. It is a tough task when Bafana’s performance encourage melancholia. I still have a dream. I have a dream that my offspring will one day celebrate a Bafana Bafana victory. I have a dream that one day the team will return to winning ways.

For that dream to come to pass, we must kick out the “bunch of losers” and give new talent a chance.