Ready for Warsaw: Gordon Igesund's Bafana in Poland yesterday... that's Ricard Nunes, middle row, third from right |
It’s the friendly football match nobody wanted. South Africa
versus Poland on an unforgiving Friday night in Warsaw. Gordon Igesund tried to
get it called off. Steven Pienaar retired to avoid it. Even original host city Bydgoszcz
rejected Bafana, and the Poles were forced to shift the game to their capital.
That’s not a bad thing. Apart from having too many zees, a
riot broke out in Blydgoszcz when they hosted the 2011 Polish Cup final. And we
can expect the odd racist chant tomorrow night, the Poles are famous for it. Would
you want to play for fun against a team with the unpronounceable nickname “Bialoczerwoni”?
But the game goes on for South Africa against a rugged side filled
with Bundesliga stars and ranked 22 places above them by FIFA. And remember, Bafana Bafana have won only once in Europe - that was against not-so-mighty Malta in 2005.
New Poland manager Waldemar Fornalik, with one eye on
Tuesday’s key World Cup qualifier against England, must be wondering why they
bothered.
His inspirational captain Jakub Blaszczykowski injured an
ankle last weekend playing for German champions Borussia Dortmund against
Hanover 96 and is out of BOTH games. Goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny of Arsenal remains crocked and most
bizarrely of all, local Legia Warsaw striker Marek Saganowski suddenly finds
himself diagnosed with heart problems.
Still, he has star man Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski to pit
against the fearsome Orlando Pirate Siya Sangweni and struggling PSV Eindhoven keeper Przemyslaw
Tyton will make way for former Manchester United understudy Tomasz Kuszczak, now at Brighton, in goal, which should cheer South Africa's expat Polish population estimated at over 30,000.
On an unbeaten run of EIGHT home games, Fornalik – brought in after hosts Poland crashed out of
Euro2012 in the group stage - has also called up Legia Warsaw winger Jakub
Kosecki and Gornik Zabrze’s Arkadiusz Milik – an 18-year-old with five goals in
seven matches this season - but neither have yet been capped by the Poles.
Fornalik says of 22-year-old Jakub, the son of Polish legend
Roman Kosecki, who scored twice last weekend against Wisla Krakow: "He's a
young player who has played very well this season. Those goals are proof of
that. Like Błaszczykowski, he plays well on the flanks and has excellent 1-on-1
skills."
Igesund, who is more intent on preparing for a mid-summer AFCON
2013 at home than playing in Eastern Europe in autumn, has his full named squad
to choose from, though veteran strikers Siyabonga Nomvethe and Benni McCarthy were
left at home in rehabilitation rather than frail care.
Bernard Parker, the prolific Kaizer Chiefs striker, will
lead the line with Dino Ndlovu, who has recovered from the shoulder injury he
picked up in the 1-0 defeat against Brazil in Sao Paulo.
The Maccabi Haifa striker said: "If we play with the
same mentality we had in Brazil, we should be fine. It’s good to be back. I
have played some matches in Israel and my injury is fine.
"The spirit is high which should perhaps work in our
favour, we should be okay against Poland."
We're banking on a team that looks like this: Khune; Nthethe, Khumalo (capt), Sangweni, Nunes; Myeni, Dikgacoi, Furman, Buckley; Ndlovu, Parker.
We're banking on a team that looks like this: Khune; Nthethe, Khumalo (capt), Sangweni, Nunes; Myeni, Dikgacoi, Furman, Buckley; Ndlovu, Parker.
But all eyes will be on unknown Portuguese-South African Ricardo
Nunes, 26, who left South Africa as a youngster to join the Benfica academy. Now
playing for MSK Zilna in Slovakia, Igesund has had two days to assess the talents
of his Johannesburg-born left-sided wingback.
Nunes admits: “I’ve
only seen South African football on the internet, but some of my African team-mates
at Zilna talk about the skills there. And I saw the Brazil highlights, so I am
confident we can beat Poland.
“I am very excited to be here with my new international
team-mates. It was a very special moment to be called up by the land of my
birth. I had to sort out my papers first with Fifa before I could accept the
call-up but I’m here now!”
While Igesund goes about his unenviable task in Warsaw – I can’t
see Bafana winning, a draw would be great - the real African action this
weekend comes with the second legs of the AFCON 2013 final qualifiers.
By Sunday night we will know the identities of all the 15
teams headed to join hosts South Africa in January.
Traditional continental big-guns Cameroon need to overcome a
2-0 deficit against the Cape Verde Islands, with Indomitable Lions superstar
Samuel Eto’o due to return to the team.
Didier Drogba’s Ivory Coast are 4-2 up against Senegal, but
the Elephants can’t afford to slip up in Dakar. Reigning African champions
Zambia have put their squad on double-bonuses as they defend a slender 1-0
advantage over Uganda in Kampala.
Elias Pelembe must recover from his mugging last week - which forced him out of Mamelodi Sundowns' defeat against Platinum Stars - to
lead Mozambique to Marrakech after their rousing 2-0 first leg win of Morocco in Maputo. The Mambas would be basically playing at home if they get drawn to play at the Mbombela Stadium.
The full AFCON fixture list looks like this:
Saturday 13th
Malawi (0) v (2) Ghana (Lilongwe; 14:h30)
Black Stars should
cruise to their 19th AFCON appearance
Botswana (0) v (3) Mali (Gaberone; 15h00)
Sadly, the Zebras have
no chance even in Gaberone
Uganda (0) v (1) Zambia (Kampala; 15h00)
No Rainford Kalaba,
but I back the champions to edge it
Tunisia (2) v (2) Sierra Leone (Monastir; 20h15)
Eagles of Carthage can
get through on a 0-0 draw
Senegal (2) v (4) Ivory Coast (Dakar; 20h30)
South Africa needs Didier
Drogba and the Toures to qualify
Morocco (0) v (2) Mozambique (Marrakech; 21h00)
Black Mambas have
every chance of making it, just
Nigeria (2) v (2) Liberia (Calabar; 17h00)
Super Eagles will be
popular here but it’s tough
Sunday 14th
Cameroon (0) v (2) Cape Verde (Yaounde; 16h00)
With Praia knowledge,
Lions should be indomitable
Angola (1) v (3) Zimbabwe (Luanda; 17h00)
Cracker in Luanda, the
Warriors should just about make it
Togo (1) v (1) Gabon (Lome, 17h30)
Emmanuel Adebayor
should be fit, should be enough for Togo
Equatorial Guinea (0) v (4) DR Congo (Malabo, 20h00)
Plenty of local
Congans happy to see their side waltz in
Burkina Faso (0) v (1) Central African Republic (Ougadouguo;
20h00)
CAR not the easy
victims they used to be, could make it
Algeria (1) v (0) Libya (Blida, 20h00)
Desert Warriors should
add to Libya’s current woes
Ethiopia (3) v (5) Sudan (Addis Ababa; 15h00)
Will we see 8 more
goals? Hard to call
Niger (0) v (1) Guinea (Niamey, 17h00)
Niger were lucky to
escape a beating in Conakry.
Nice .. I see that you can't take any critism. So I tell you that you wrong about Tomasz Kuszczak and then you correct the article and delete my comment as well. Don't know why i'm commenting anyway since you'll probably delete this as well.
ReplyDeleteToo similar - http://www.supersport.com/football/bafana/news/121011/Poland_skipper_Kuba_out_of_Bafana_tie
ReplyDeleteThanks An! And King Don, my preview written before that one.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly. SS posted theirs about an hour before yours. Anyway it doesn't matter - news is news.
ReplyDeleteSo mysterious King Don, you'd be interested how often the major websites follow this blog. Mine was up before SS yesterday, but as you say, news is news. Some of the local SA papers are still regurgitating Wednesday's news about the game.
ReplyDeleteYes Neal I know .. SS love copying stuff from everywhere: Sowetan, Kick Off, SL, etc. They read a tweet, follow a link, write a story and publish.
ReplyDeleteI was not accusing you of copying. In my initial post, I was just trying to say that the SS article is similar to yours. I should have perhaps worded my comment better.
For what its worth, your blog has this post going up at 17:23 (GMT+1), SS has their post going up at 17:18 (GMT+2), which is before yours.
Anyway i always respect you as a journo.
To prevent such incidents like this from happening in the future .. please set your blog to not allow anon comments, have all comments should be made with a google, wp, openID account or something.
ReplyDeleteNeal .. I just had a weird thought .. A couple of days ago I commented on a Juju article using you daughters name and said something sexual .. I really hope you didn't think it was her, lol. Please tell me you didn't confront her about that.
ReplyDelete