SISA MAJOLA

JOHANNESBURG - New Bafana Bafana coach, Pitso Mosimane unveiled his four-year plan for the national team yesterday, as he readies the side for their most testing period yet.

Mosimane gave a similar presentation to the media at Safa House to that given to the Safa technical committee a few weeks ago, on his plans to revive the fortunes of the side.

Bafana’s standards have dropped considerably in the last decade with rock bottom being their failure to qualify for this year’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Angola.

They had performed dismally in the 2006 and 2008 tournaments as well, where the team exited in the first round.

The new path starts with their next friendly match against the new darlings of African soccer, Ghana, on August 11, before playing in the 2012 Nations Cup qualifiers against Niger, Sierra Leone and Egypt.

Ghana, who have been on the button with their development and structures over the past few years, went on to bear fruit in the recent World Cup where they finished as quarterfinalists – the best showing from the six African teams competing.

“It is important to build progressively, and the 2012 Nations Cup will be the base for that foundation,” said Mosimane.

“We need to make an impact and start to respect these sort of friendly games.

“It easy to play the likes of Lesotho, but now we should be playing the likes of Ghana to see where we stand.”

After that, 2013 and 2014 will be testing years for Mosimane with the Nations Cup taking place in 2013, and qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil being played.

But, as Mosimane outlined, the infrastructure support similar to that they received for the World Cup needs to be in place for success.

Safa – who infamously bungled securing a base camp shortly before the tournament – can ill afford distractions to the new vision, and will need to secure the School of Excellence as the national team’s base.

“I know previous coaches, Carlos Parreira and Stuart Baxter, have asked for issues to be resolved in the past, and we had challenges getting a base for the World Cup.

“We need to follow teams like Brazil who have base camps for the national teams, and should aim at supporting all of our national teams.”