President Daniel Alexander Jordaan,
South African Football Association,
SAFA House,
Nasrec,
Johannesburg.
DEAR DANNY,
Firstly, please excuse the informality but you’ve been in my lounge so often that I think of us as good friends…. well, when I say you’ve been in my lounge I mean that you’ve been on television in my lounge, you know, but hey, it’s the same thing, right?
Now listen, Danny, my ol’ pal, it ain’t no secret that yet again there is a vacancy at SAFA House, what with ol’ Gordon Igesund getting the chop, and I am hereby applying for his job.
Ag, man, shame, hey? What did Gordon say about Bafana Bafana scoring an average of “in excess of 1.5 goals a game” over the last 32 matches? I dunno, is that good? And what the hell is Point Five of a goal? Gordon also said that in “official matches” under his tenure, Bafana Bafana played 14, won seven, drew five and lost twice, which, I dunno, seems to me to be a reasonable statistic
given Bafana’s history. Sure, I don’t know what other South African coaches have achieved but I bet it ain’t much better.
And boy, have we had some coaches. Just as well there’s a revolving door on SAFA House or some of them might have been injured going in and out at the speed they have. I mean, since 1992 there’s been:
Stanley Tshabalala (1992), Ephraim Mashaba (1992), Augusto Palacios (1993) and then ol’ Clive Barker who managed to hang onto the reins for probably the longest (1994–97). Then it was Jomo Sono (1998), Philippe Troussier (1998), Trott Moloto (1998–00), Carlos Queiroz (2000–02) followed by Ephraim Mashaba who came back for a while (2001).
He was followed by Trott Moloto (2002) coming back for a second stint, then Jomo Sono (2002) for his second stint, and then Ephraim Mashaba (2002–03) for his third, and then lo and behold old Jomo Sono (2003) pops up again. It’s uncanny.
Then it was April Phumo (2004), Stuart Baxter (2004–05), Ted Dumitru (2005–06) and Pitso Mosimane (2006) for the first time. Then in preparation for the 2010 World Cup we hired at great expense one Carlos Alberto Parreira (2007–08), who buggered
off after a while, so we got in Joel Santana (2008–09) who couldn’t speak English, let alone Funagalo.
And then Carlos Alberto Parreira (2009–10) came back for the actual World Cup, after which he and his well-packed wallet vamoosed again, and then Pitso Mosimane (2010–12) got another try. He was followed by Steve Komphela (2012), and finally
Gordon Igesund (2012–2014) who got his marching orders last week.
Bloody hell, Danny. TWENTY THREE coaches in twenty-two years!
That can’t be true, let me recount…
Yep, 23 coaches in 22 years, and we fire the coach! We should have fired some of the decision makers at SAFA House. When is SAFA ever going to realise that Rome wasn’t built in a day? Short of a shack in an informal settlement, you can’t build anything
substantial in a day. Do you think Alex Ferguson at Man United achieved what he did in a year or two?
Seriously, I guarantee that whoever you now appoint to coach Bafana Bafana will never achieve SAFA’s expectations in the short term. This is why, should SAFA consider my application favourably, I will insist on a guaranteed minimum five-year contract.
And then, you may well ask what I think I can bring to the job of coaching Bafana Bafana that previous coaches have not been able to achieve?
Good question.
Well, firstly, the guaranteed minimum five-year contact is the foundation upon which I will build success. Secondly, I will insist that I have sole discretion as to who my assistant coach will be, and I’ll tell you here and now it will be Gordon Igesund, who I will insist also has a guaranteed five-year contract. I will hand over the reins of Bafana coaching to Gordon, full control, and I will then simply be a buffer between him and SAFA. Mess with Gordon and you mess with me, and you don’t want to mess with me. Trust me.
But the other thing that I will insist upon, with immediate effect, is that the word “friendly” will be banned from SAFA House. Gordon seems to have been coach for 32 matches, but only 14 were “official”, the rest presumably being considered “friendlies”.
“Friendly”? Are you stoopid? Is SAFA out of its little well-fed skull?
Can you imagine the Springboks playing a “friendly” against New Zealand? Can you see us lining up and holding hands for a “friendly” against Australia? “Friendly” immediately implies that the result doesn’t matter – how can you play an international match whose result doesn’t matter? No wonder we only scored 1.5 goals per match; the result in nearly half the games didn’t matter.
And we wonder why we’re not at the World Cup in Brazil. NOW it matters, hey? Now that we’re sitting here out in the cold with our thumbs up our poepols it matters. So, no more “friendly” matches!
It really is that simple, after all, unlike in rugby, the ball is round.
So, Danny, my ol’ mate,
I hope to hear from you soon,
Yours in football,
Jimmy Smith.
