Baxter losing some sympathy
At some point in the very near future, maybe even right now, Stuart Baxter will be sitting somewhere in Sweden contemplating whether he wants to carry on as head coach of Bafana Bafana.
Stuart Baxter, coach of South Africa (Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix)
“Should I stay or should I go now? If I go, there will be trouble. And if I stay it will be double,” so goes the song from the Clash, and if Baxter’s press conference in Johannesburg on Saturday, conducted at times in a firestorm of fury, is anything to go by, he feels right now that staying is certainly double the trouble.
Baxter’s ire, I would suggest, is partly directed at the SA Football Association, though that was rather watered down on Saturday at the OR Tambo International airport, with Safa officials present, with only a by-now standard mention made of the preparations that saw Bafana play just one friendly ahead of the 2019 Afcon.
Baxter had no problem, on the other hand, directing a barrage of anger at the media, clearly at his wit’s end over questions about his future. In Baxter’s view, Bafana performed well at the Africa Cup of Nations, beating hosts Egypt, and only going down narrowly to Nigeria in the quarterfinals.
Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, we were told, had praised Bafana’s performance after the win against Egypt. The Bafana Bafana coach is truly the emperor of name-dropping. Baxter’s point does have merit. Bafana were spectacularly good against Egypt in the last-16, a result that came from nowhere after their stultifying efforts in the group stages.
Reaching the quarterfinals was Bafana’s best achievement away at an Africa Cup of Nations since 2002, and they only lost to a last-gasp goal against Nigeria in the last eight. Ivory Coast, Morocco, Egypt, and Nigeria have better players than South Africa, on paper anyway, and would realistically be favourites to beat Bafana on any given day.
It is the way Baxter chose to express his feelings that is perturbing. He let his emotions get the better of him on Saturday, coming across as arrogant and belittling journalists when he would have been far better off keeping his cool, pointing out his valid arguments and carrying on from there.
It also left no room, one felt, for the valid negatives that people have raised about the performance in Egypt. Bafana’s football lacked any sort of attacking cohesion in the group stages, out of which South Africa were fortunate to emerge, as the last of the best third-placed finishers. Baxter has tended to point to the aforementioned poor preparation as a reason for this, but he still had longer with the complete Bafana squad than any coach has had for a January Africa Cup of Nations.
Given that he had this amount of time, one would have expected more from Bafana in attack, however many friendlies they played, while Baxter’s negative tactics also played into the hands of their Group D opponents.
Ivory Coast didn’t look convincing in that opening match, but Bafana’s reticence (they didn’t have a shot on target), meant the Elephants were able to produce one moment of magic and grab three points. On another day, Namibia might have beaten Bafana, Buhle Mkhwanazi clearing off the line in the second half, before Bongani Zungu grabbed the winner.
And against Morocco, Bafana crawled back into their shell as Morocco grabbed the winner.
Baxter’s fury deflected all of these valid points, and has to lose him some sympathy as he contemplates his future.
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