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The 76-year-old mentor does not think South Africa benefits from facing Chipolopolo on Sunday
Former Bafana Bafana coach Clive Barker does not believe that Molefi Ntseki’s positions will benefit from this international break due to the caliber of the opponents they chose.
South Africa met Namibia on Thursday, drawing 1-1 and will meet Zambia in their second match.
Coach Ntseki said the reason they chose Namibia and Zambia was that the two nations play similar football to next month’s opponent, São Tomé, whom they will face in back-to-back matches in the 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifiers. .
However, Barker did not. Namibia and Zambia are strong enough opponents for Bafana and he feels that Ntseki’s men would have benefited from playing against major countries like Germany.
He also believes that the reason the country’s FA chose its opponents from the Cosafa region was that they were afraid of being humiliated on the field, especially after being inactive for so long due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t think the opponents Bafana Bafana chose are strong enough,” Barker said. objective .
“I would have expected people like Germany, but then again maybe it’s trying to avoid hiding from those major nations.
“However, I don’t think they will give Bafana the competition they need for the November Afcon qualifiers against São Tomé.”
Barker speaks from experience as he was in charge of Bafana Bafana for three years between 1994 and 1997.
He won the 1996 Afcon trophy at home, but before that, Bafana faced high-profile opponents from Europe and South America as Barker prepared his team for the tournament.
Since Ntseki replaced Stuart Baxter as head coach in August 2019, Bafana Bafana has only played against African opponents in the form of Mali, Ghana, Sudan and Namibia.
Bafana won two of the four matches, lost one and tied the other, and they are expected to win as many friendlies as possible as this would help them avoid being in the group of death when the next Afcon tournament draw takes place. year. provided they qualify.
