So, our beloved Flames have become such a hopeless side that even the fellas from the tiny kingdom of Lesotho can beat us? To make matters worse, the Basotho even had the luxury to feature ‘girls’ in the likes of the lone goal scorer Jane Thaba-Ntso and Sera Motebang and they still beat us?
And I wonder what happened to the spirit of fairplay which Fifa always advocates? Because in all fairness, the expectation was that Cosafa should have also created the ‘Spoon Section’ for teams such as the Flames—which failed to earn participation in the plate category—to compete in the ‘spoon’ category.
It was such a heartbreaking end to the Flames campaign and understandably, one of the radio commentators—on Friday—summed it up that the Flames were clueless and lacked ‘composition’ in front of goal. I am sure he meant ‘composure’.
After the match, I dug deep into my heart and asked myself that if we cannot beat mickey mouse teams such as Lesotho, who are ranked 155 in the world, then who else can we beat? If we cannot beat a team from the tiny landlocked country known for covering themselves with blankets, then it is a cause for worry.
Yes, my beloved Flames enjoyed a lion’s share of possession, but the currency of this game is about scoring goals, not walilelile as if they were competing in the Mayor’s Trophy where you have primary school teams such as Livimbo, Tsokankanansi and Tsabango battling it out. And in a smash-and-grab classic raid, it was Lesotho who got it right in the end.
In the current situation, even if we hired Pep Guardiola, he won’t be able to turn things around and it could just turn into a holiday for him and his family. It’s time we conducted some serious soul-searching on issues such as funding and revival of developmental structures. Otherwise let’s forget about football and turn to village banking. Uloliwe, uloliwe wayidudula neng’esiza hah! (Oh yes! The train is pushing). Glory be to God.
