You'd better start to get that savings kitty going now if you want to join Bafana Bafana in Cameroon for Afcon mfowethu!
Check here, I watched a very exciting Bafana Bafana team in action this past weekend in the Nelson Mandela Challenge ek se.
I was chilling there with a bunch of ouens and grootmanne at the famous NY110 strip in Gugs thinking, “nay man just last month, our Cosafa brothers Zambia and Madagascar wanted nothing to do with us when we invited them to come play a friendly match against our Bafana”.
I was thinking, because timelines were tight it would be near impossible to get an opponent with a profile high enough to not only test Bafana under new coach Molefi Ntseki, but to also give the match some dignity.
It is after all a match played in honour one of the world’s most celebrated statesmen - the late Nelson Mandela.
But Mali answered the call, my bru, and we had a match that we could be excited about in Port Elizabeth.
The Eagles are ranked just outside of the Caf top 10 at 11th and just outside the world top 50 at 57th, while we occupy the 13th spot in the continental standings and 71 on the Fifa rankings.
Bafana were without their main men Lebo Mothiba and Percy Tau, who were without a doubt their best performers in European leagues last season.
Ntseki decided on having the in-form Bradley Grobler lead the attack alone up front, supported by a very flexible attacking midfield trio of Keagan Dolly, Thulani Serero and Thembinkosi Lorch.
Meanwhile, Kamohelo Mokotjo held things together in the middle of the park alongside Dean Furman, who had one of his most commanding performances in a Bafana shirt and deserved the Man of the Match award he got.
You can always trust those two to give you a proper shift, because they keep things simple.
It was a classic South African-style performance by the ouens mentioned above, they kept the ball on the carpet and played to their strengths.
They kept the ball moving and supported each other most of the time.
They also got the win, beating the visitors 2-1 in front of a relatively lively crowd at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
Furman converted a penalty for South Africa’s first goal before Themba Zwane came off the bench for the injured Dolly and scored the second goal.
The goal that we conceded was by no means down to a defensive error, which is promising.
UNAVAILABLE: Percy Tau. Picture: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix.
It was just a really good goal and a brilliant individual effort, so it’s probably not a good idea to be too harsh on the ouens for those types of goals.
While the depth of talents in midfield and attack are obvious, we should be concerned about the lack of options in defense.
We finally got to see Innocent Maela and Thapelo Morena at left and rightback and they were brilliant.
They were involved in a lot of what Bafana did when in possession and were rarely caught out of position.
Captain Thulani Hlatshwayo was an obviaaaaaas, while Eric Mathoho basically walked back into his position next to the skipper at centreback. No complaints there either.
But we should be worried about who would step up should any of these guys would be unavailable.
The defensive positions are very sensitive because they are mostly down to confidence and an understand between players, while most of what happens upfront is a lot about individual instincts and having those click at the right time. So you can’t afford to have a nervous player defend against that.
I don’t know about you, but the boys gave me every reason to be excited about the road to Afcon 2021.
Over the next year, Bafana will play their qualifiers against Group C rivals Ghana, Sudan and Sao Tome and Príncipe.
They’ll start with an away trip Kumasi, Ghana on Friday, 15 November and return home four days later to host Sudan at Orlando Stadium, Soweto on Tuesday, 19 November.
What I saw this weekend was a team that has the goods to secure qualification for the tournament and worthy to take a chance on and plan the next Afcon experience.
So I think you should get your ouens together to start a stokvel of some sort and put some money away so that you can join Bafana in the great Samuel Eto’o’s homeland in a year and a half.