Johannesburg — NEWLY appointed national team coach Pitso Mosimane conceded yesterday that he was well aware that he was taking a huge risk by playing against World Cup quarterfinalists Ghana in his first match in charge. Bafana Bafana face the Black Stars at Soccer City on August 11 and Mosimane said he was "facing a baptism of fire". "It would have been easy for me to run away and ask the South African Football Association (Safa) to get me weak opponents in my first game in charge," he said yesterday. "It would have been far easier to do that. I know that a friendly game against a team like this represents a huge risk because this is Ghana we are talking about here. "But that is not what I am about and I was never going to know where we are as a team if we played against weak sides. How would I move forward with this team if I did not play against strong opposition?" It remains to be seen who will manage Bafana ahead of this encounter after Dennis Mumble - who served as acting team manager during the World Cup - indicated yesterday that he was finally attending to many of the projects within Safa that he had to put on hold during the tournament. 
South African soccer fans. "All of my other projects came to a virtual standstill and I am trying to address them right now," the Safa director of planning and development said. "If I am needed, I can only be available short term because I can no longer be available full time. The difficulty is that I had always indicated that I would only be there until after the World Cup." This means Mosimane has had to do the job himself but he insisted yesterday that it was not a burden. The problems around the team manager notwithstanding, Mosimane has a very little time on his hands to prepare the national team for a match that will capture the imagination of the public. South Africans adopted the Ghanaians during the World Cup after the continent's other representatives - SA, Nigeria, Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Cameroon - all failed to get beyond the first round of the global showpiece. It took Uruguay to finally end Ghana's dream of becoming the first African team to reach the semifinals of the World Cup when the South Americans won a tense penalty shoot-out 4-2 at the selfsame Soccer City earlier this month. Mosimane said while he had no problem playing against Ghana, he had concerns about having to play a friendly match so soon after the World Cup. "In my opinion I don't think that we should play this game because it is too soon after the World Cup. "Imagine Spain having to play a friendly on the same date after winning the World Cup only a few weeks ago. Imagine that." Relevant LinksMosimane said he had other problems as he did not know what shape some of his players would be in when they arrived back in SA for the assignment. Some of the players have not been training, while some are trying to secure transfers to greener pastures after putting themselves on the shopping window during the World Cup. Even those who are with their clubs are nowhere near match fitness as it is still off-season in many countries around the world. "But I have never been one to complain and I suppose Ghana have the problems that we have." The nation's soccer lovers are crossing their fingers that Ghana bring something close to the side that performed so brilliantly in SA during the World Cup. But with nothing to play for and with this friendly just weeks after the global contest, cynics are already predicting that the Black Stars will probably send their reserve side. Be the first to Write a Comment! Copyright © 2010 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. AllAfrica - All the Time
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