Dean Furman during the South African national mens soccer team press conference at Fusion Boutique. (Photo by Philip Maeta/Gallo Images)
Bafana misfired in front of goal against the Ivory Coast in their opening 1-0 defeat, with the likes of Percy Tau and Lebo Mothiba failing to muster a shot on target against the Elephants.
“We must not panic over one game, where a few players didn’t fire,” said Furman on Thursday at the pre-match press conference.
“Only a couple of months ago, Percy (Tau) banged in two worldies against Libya to send us here, he was player of the season in his domestic league, now all of a sudden after one game we are putting question marks out there?
“We believe in what we have, we could have offered more attacking threat the other day, and hopefully we can show that in the Namibia game. We have fantastic players who can light up the stage, and let’s
not get too worked up over one attacking performance that didn’t really set the world on fire.
“There are two games to go, and one hugely important game tomorrow and hopefully the boys will fire the
way we know they can. We saw it against Nigeria and Libya (in qualifying), we know they can produce magic and we are confident they will do that for us in the coming games.”
Furman, meanwhile, said he isn’t bothered by criticism the side have received following the Ivory Coast defeat.
“Criticism is part and parcel of the game. When you win you are great, and when you lose you are not. It is an individual thing if you want to read papers and log onto news outlets. It is up to you, personally
I don’t do that. It is important to me what my coach and my teammates think, that is how I gauge my performance. I am old enough and wise enough to know myself.”
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