Bafana Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki is on a mission to look for fresh talent to improve the calibre of strikers in the national team. This is followed by a match Bafana played against Ghana in their home country, when they lost 2-0 tothe Ghanaians, but subsequently the national team won against Sudan by 1-0 at the Orlando Stadium.
The attendance by South African football fanatics was not impressive as the stadium was barely occupied by fans, however, that did not discourage Ntseki as he added how fans were cheering the boys even though people did not come in numbers.
On the other hand, Ntseki is on a mission to scout new and fresh players to assist in regaining the confidence in the national football team and one of his options is Thomas Barkhuizen (26) originally born in England. Barkhuizen qualifies to play for Bafana Bafana through his grandfather who was born in South Africa.
Barkhuizen has had a fruitful season for Preston in the English Championship, mostly alternating between playing in a central role on attack as well as operating out wide, in all of his competitions – he has played 17 times, netting seven goals to help his side up to second place behind West Bromwich Albion in the league.
Ahead of the two opening matches of the 2021 African Cup of Nations (AFCON), the national team’s target was to at least obtain four points, however, the boys were only able to get three points. Considering there are four games that are yet to be played in Confederation of African Football (CAF), coach Molefi believes that all hope is notlost as he will be using the head to head system
Currently there are two World Cup qualifiers arranged between March and July 2020 before the AFCON qualifiers continue in September 2020. The time to the World Cup is approaching and only five countries out of 55 CAF nations will be representing Africa. Most nations that qualify for CAF are nations that have players from overseas and as such this boosts the team’s performance, furthermore, head coaches such as Ntseki recognise the importance of having players that are based overseas in the Bafana Bafana squad and hopefully this will make a tremendous difference come the AFCON.
