It was heralded as the glorious return of Carlos Alberto Parreira and Benni McCarthy, but what we saw was really more a showcase of Japan's quick-passing, all-running football.
Parreira sent out an almost identical side to the one the dearly departed Joel Santana preferred, with Benni's inclusion a no-brainer more than a tactical switch.
The match in blistering Port Elizabeth conditions ended 0-0, so what more have we learnt about our national side after this result?
1) Benni can lose more weight
This is not really news, but Benni appears leaner than we expected. But he can still easily shed another 5kgs and is as fit (or unfit) as we expected after being substituted on 74 mins.
2) The country's morale seems to be lifted
The Bafana faithful at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium seemed fully behind the team again despite the lack of entertainment, although it could just be that this was the first home game in a while and we didn't lose.
3) We missed Gaxa
Debutant right-back Anele Ngongca didn't bath himself in glory but improved in the second half. The marauding Siboniso Gaxa's absence was, however, quite noticable.
4) First touch is horrible
Some of our players make Shaun Goater's efforts in his prime look world class with the quality of their first touch.
5) Too many backwards passes
Kagiso Dikcaqoi has perfected the art of killing Bafana's forward momentum. His number of backwards passes was far higher than our number of shots at goal.
6) A clean sheet is good
The defence can be commended for shutting out a Japan side who have been scoring many goals of late, although the visitors still looked threatening whenever they had the ball and we needed Josephs to be alert on several occasions to preserve the clean sheet.
7) The team is not fit enough
Japan were light years ahead of Bafana in terms of fitness, stamina and workrate, which is also the case when we play against top European sides. Parreira and his coaching staff will do well to work on that intensively in training, which is the least they can do considering we play no competitive matches before 2010.
8) Parreira sounds good
Parreira sounds like he speaks the Queen's English compared to Papa Joel and thankfully resisted the usual rhetoric of 'good experience, Bafana Bafana played good', etc. Although he did talk up how good Japan are, but that's fair enough.
9) Toothless in attack
We still looked unthreatening in the final third when we managed to prise the ball away from the impressive Japan (this is not something new either but has to be said). Benni was supposed to provide the answer up front but was living off scraps, partly because we didn't give him the ball in good positions and partly because he needs to get into more good positions.
10) We have a base to build on
At least we didn't lose, and the defence was okay, so we can hope that with more time Parreira will work on the things that matter i.e. scoring goals.
Mark Herman
Post A Comment!
Be the first to post a comment on this story