South Africa's quest for leadership: all eyes on Milton "Micho" Sredojevic after AFCON 2017

CRANES DRIVER: Milutin "Micho" Sredojevic

SOUTH AFRICANS are suffering a football-free void until February 7 but while we wait for the domestic game to restart... keep an eye on Uganda.

Milutin Sredojević, also known as MICHO, is the 47-year-old Serbian who could be on the verge of joining Bafana Bafana after AFCON 2017.

He’s the bloke who got Uganda’s Cranes to the AFCON in Gabon which starts on January 14. While our blessed Bafana under Ephraim Mashaba couldn’t even get close, Micho somehow got Uganda to the final stages for the first time since they finished second in 1978.

With South Africa’s PSL on extended vacation until next month, all eyes will be on the 2017 African Nations Cup, with our neighbours Zimbabwe also making the cut and Cote D’Ivoire attempting to defend the title they won in Equatorial Guinea two years ago.

With Uganda’s FA struggling for cash - they don’t even have a kit sponsor - there has been talk of their precious Serbian coach failing to get the cash he was promised for getting the nation to Gabon.

With Ghana (17 Jan), Egypt (21 Jan) and Mali (Jan 25) in their uncompromising group at Afcon, few expect Micho’s men to progress to the latter stages. In qualifying, their Group D saw Uganda finish with four wins, a draw and a defeat to emerge behind Burkina Faso but ahead of Botswana and the Comoros as one of two best runners-up.

With a friendly against Tunisia away lined up for January 4, Micho is currently trying to select his best 23 for Gabon, before a warm-up tournament against Ivory Coast and Slovakia in the UAE.

But it’s what happens AFTER their first AFCON in 38 years we South Africans should be concerned about.

Weeks ago, when Bafana Bafana drew their final AFCON 2017 qualifier with Mauritania to finish third in their group, I was told SAFA president Danny Jordaan, having lost the NMB mayoral race against the DA’s Athol Trollop, had finally realised the state of South Africa’s national team during his absence.

Two weeks later, talks with Micho had - allegedly - taken place. I was told Bafana Bafana incumbent Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba had too much political support to be summarily fired for an awful AFCON performance which featured players not good enough to play for their club sides..

Instead, Shaky was told he HAD to get four points from his first two World Cup 2018 qualifiers against Burkina Faso and Africa’s best side Senegal.

Incredibly, after an away draw which they deserved to win, South Africa beat Senegal at home - on the back of a dodgy penalty from Ghanaian referee Jonthan Lamptey, who was subsequently banned for three months - and Shaky appeared to be safe.

But no, Jordaan - who told BBC Africa a few weeks before that Mashaba “had to go, the outcry is too great” - then reacted to Mashaba’s understandable glee by firing our national head coach.

True, Mashaba wagged his finger at Jordaan and accused him of being “unsupportive” in front of several witnesses, but to fire Shaky after beating Senegal was distinctly dodgy. Suspension was followed by a kangaroo court and termination.

Why? Because Micho had been lined up by Jordaan, just as Carlos Queiroz had been told he had the job after Gordon Igesund but was rejected due to his required salary.

Just 24 hours before the guillotine fell on Mashaba’s neck, I’m told Dr Irvin Khoza - the PSL chairman who REALLY runs South African football - decided Micho would be a good replacement for caretaker coach Augusto Palacios at his own club, Orlando Pirates.

Which leaves us in an interesting position before Bafana resume their World Cup qualification process against Cape Verde Islands in August. 

I’m told Khoza, who put Micho in charge at Orlando with mixed fortunes in 2006, was the man who initially made contact with the Uganda coach two months ago. The compromise position: Mashaba (who has never proved himself at club level) could go to Pirates, who currently languish in an unacceptable TENTH in the PSL, allowing Micho to take the Bafana job.

The man himself insists he is focused on Uganda, he says: “Whatever you are hearing, I am loyal to Uganda. My contract expires in 2018 but  the bags of any coach are always half packed.

“I believe you have a top class team in South Africa. I admire good football and I believe you have a very, very good team. In life you never know.”

Whatever happens, Micho is contracted to Uganda until 2018. But if Uganda get hammered at AFCON, which is a distinct possibility, he’ll be sacked and available.

And Bafana, with a useful 4 points from their two World Cup qualifiers, may be too good to turn down.

When MICHO was last at Orlando Pirates, he complained about discipline problems HERE: http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/sport/all-is-not-well-at-pirates-says-sredojevic-561513

From Shaky to shakier: Mashaba said "something special is brewing" but it was just decomposing

TIME TO GO: Ephraim "Shakes" Mashaba

ONE win in months. An endless list of excuses. Failure to address deep-seated failures in the organisation. Lacking qualified leadership. No, we're not talking Kaizer Chiefs. Or even the ANC. It's SOUTH AFRICAN FOOTBALL we have to worry about.

Our PSL ground to a halt after one game, with the opening round suffering record low attendances. For the first time in living memory we don't have a player in the top 5 leagues in Europe. Our national football team continues to hit new lows.

Thank God for Mamelodi Sundowns, I say. And yes, they are coached by the coach SAFA threw out.

Like a broken record, Pitso Mosimane's successor Ephraim Mashaba drones on. And on. A 1-1 home draw against a 10-man nation of slave owners. But listen carefully. Mashaba’s saying nothing. He’s going nowhere.

Third in Group M. Out of AFCON 2017 months ago, though neither coach nor president appeared to notice. One point from two games against Mauritania, ranked 104 in the world.

No admission of guilt from Shakes. No apology to the nation. Just a bizarre utterance concerning Zimbabwe’s Kharma Billiat, when Dino Ndlovu and Kermit Erasmus, resurrecting their striking careers on foreign fields, are ignored again and again by our national head coach.

As a lesson in motivation, Mashaba’s views on his strike force are best ignored. But here it is: "All the top strikers in the league are foreign. If I can have a player like Khama Billiat, then maybe we’d score more.”

But then Mashaba’s post-match comments cannot be expected to measure up to somebody like, say, Kaizer Chiefs coach-cum-poet Steve Komphela.

On June 5 this year, Mashaba said: "Can this be one of the best Bafana Bafana teams ever? Something special is brewing." Arrogant. Delusional. Out of touch. His current squad rarely rises above the awful.

He's even talked about winning the World Cup, in his mind, his team "completely dominates" every team Bafana plays against, he eagerly suggests the non-playing stars in his line-up will come good, it’s been this way since the 2-2 draw with Nigeria in 2014.

Up to that point, we were happy to put up with his bizarre lack of tactics, his weird decisions, that inexplicable head-rubbing goal celebration.

But by the time he’d selected his AFCON 2015 team, throwing out Thulani Serero in a deceitful rage, we were starting to suspect Mashaba wasn’t all he seemed. We finally began to understand why he hadn’t been snatched up to manage a club or left South Africa’s youth set-up apart from a brief failure with Swaziland.

There’s more: after the Mauritania debacle, the decision to let his old favourite Thamsanqa Gabuza take the penalty, the fact we didn’t try to exploit the visitors’ red card, the total lack of imagination.

Here’s more: “The way the boys are playing, I don’t doubt we’ll qualify for the World Cup,” he boasts, just before our qualifying group rivals Senegal became the ONLY side to qualify for Gabon next year with a perfect record.

And then: "We are really looking forward to qualifying with the team we are setting up, but we have one problem; how are we going to sort out the scoring problem?”

But that’s where this all started. We go in to the Mandela challenge against Egypt full of hope. South Africa have been winning friendlies and losing competitive games for decades. Remember the 2010 World Cup warm-ups? Unbeaten for months. The dodgy 3-0 win over Mali in Gabon just before AFCON 2015?

Best not examine those games too closely. They have given Mashaba an apparently impressive overall record 37 games, with 17 wins, 16 draws and just four defeats.

But look closer. Go back to that last AFCON 2015 qualifier in Nigeria, drawn 2-2 after two superb Tokelo Rantie goals. Since then, Bafana have played 10 Afcon games. Just one win, 7 draws, two defeats. You get a clearer picture. The real picture.

Mashaba is tactically bankrupt. He has no idea how to change a game with substitutes. Mr Rotation doesn’t even know who his captain, goalkeeper or penalty taker might be. He chooses players, as so many Bafana coaches before him, by listening to the loudest agent.

And for those, like me, who thought a technical director might help control a man who gets his son to ask questions in press conferences, Neil Tovey has been the biggest disappointment of all. Silent on all fronts, apart from SuperSport TV where he is paid for his views while pulling a big salary from SAFA. Unbelievable.

I have little doubt Shaky, who apparently still subscribes to Danny Jordaan’s Vision 2022 philosophy, will beat Egypt on Tuesday with five or six players close to 30.

And the SAFA President, just back from losing Nelson Mandela Bay to the DA, will no doubt tell us how wonderful everything is. It’s isn’t. We finished THIRD in AFCON Group M. Only ONE side qualifies for Russian 2018. Senegal are coming.

When Shaky Meyer apologised to the nation: doesn't anybody in South Africa know when to resign?

THE TWO STOOGES: Meyer and Mashaba

THIS is not life and death. It's sport. But as different parts of South Africa recover from the devastation of defeats to Arsenal, Kaizer Chiefs and the Springboks, it's important to consider THE NEXT STEP.

Obviously, there have been calls for Arsene Wenger's head for nearly a decade. And NOBODY is demanding the sack for Steve Komphela in his first season, despite Saturday's MTN8 final defeat against Ajax Cape Town.

But something CAN be done about the men who guide our major sports teams: Heyneke Meyer and Ephraim Mashaba. Here's where we begin:

Here’s what Shakes said after Bafana Bafana lost to Mauritania 3-1 in Nouakchott, a result which left the nation on ONE point from two AFCON 2017 qualifiers: “Why should I apologise? I have done nothing wrong. Apology for what? Didn’t this team ever lose? Did the people expect never to lose?”

And here’s what Heyneke Meyer said after the Springboks shock defeat against Japan in their opening Rugby World Cup clash in Brighton on Saturday: "We represent a proud nation and I apologise to the nation. We have got to take it on the chin and get back on track. As coach, I take full responsibility.”

Of course, saying sorry isn’t what it’s all about. South Africans would rather win that hear an apology any day.

And the truth is both our football and rugby national coaches SHOULD resign after a string of poor results with both round and odd-shaped balls.

But nobody in South Africa appears to have the balls to resign when they’ve cocked-up. Meyer and Mashaba will not doubt go on until they are paid-off, taking their lead from the nation’s politicians.

But there are crucial differences between the two failing national coaches, both of whom have broken records for unexpected failure in recent weeks.

Mashaba is NOT expected to beat teams ranked in the top 20 of world football. Japan were ranked 13 in the world of rugby union before their astonishing win over the Boks, probably the greatest shock since William Webb-Ellis handled the ball without a red card in 1823. 

Meyer has the chance to redeem himself against Samoa (12), Scotland (10) and the USA (15) while Mashaba must defeat Cameroon (42) twice, Gambia (142) and Mauritania (114) to qualify for AFCON.

It’s all a bit squiffy of course. Rugby is generally played by former English colonies (yes, parts of France were once British, so was the USA) while football has become the world game despite Webb-Ellis's best efforts.

That’s why, when we consider these disasters for our national games - here we must include the Proteas’ recent failure in Bangladesh - it’s important to consider levels of expectation.

Meyer is under far greater pressure on that front. Pool B of the current Rugby World Cup was considered the easiest of all. Now, having lost to Japan, there are serious concerns that he won’t even get to the quarter-finals. Personally, I think the Boks will make it that far and no further.

While Mashaba has gone off to AFCON and COSAFA and returned without a win, Meyer is expected to live up to the Bok reputation: two World Cup wins and a world ranking of 3 precludes failure to get out of the primordial pools.

Mashaba’s side are currently ranked 72 and sliding. They haven’t won in EIGHT competitive games (unless you count to CHAN qualifiers against mighty Mauritius) and in truth, nobody expects miracles.

We have Angola (88) FOUR TIMES in the coming montha. Two of them for CHAN qualification, then the two massive clashes which will decide which nation goes forward to the World Cup 2018 qualifying groups.

Even if Shakes gets past Angola, he must top the group and then win a play-off to get to Russia. His predecessor Gordon Igesund couldn’t even finish top of their group for Brazil 2014, despite eventual winners Ethiopia being docked points for fielding an ineligible player.

So we expect very little from Mashaba. Just the occasional win over friendly opposition - they go to Central America for to play Costa Rica and Honduras next month - and perhaps the odd Mandela Challenge triumph.

Mashaba can pick who he wants. He can ignore classy George Lebese and Dutch-based Kamohelo Mokotjo while selecting players who are not active for their clubs. He can make poor substitutions and dreadful team-talks for months to come.

But Meyer is firmly in the spotlight. After dozens of “Springbok Farewell” dinners and parades, every move he makes is under scrutiny. For heaven’s sake: he’s picked a 38-year-old fulcrum in Victor Matfield, he only picked eight players of colour and he appears as lost tactically as our old-fashioned Mashaba.

If Meyer wheeled out his son to ask questions in press conference or called our rugby writers "small boys" he'd be gone already. Shakes has no such problems.

What we can be sure of is this: Despite the loud backing of Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula - which doesn’t appear to help - both men are under huge pressure.

If Meyer doesn’t reach the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup, he’s gone. I’d pull Nick Mallett in from the cold to replace him rather than another dull bore (spell check). If Shakes Mashaba crashes against Angola, he’ll probably survive though Gavin Hunt and Steve Komphela, even Stuart Baxter, would do a far better job.

SAFA’s Dennis Mumble insists Shaky is safe “for two years” which is perhaps the most troubling statement I’ve heard since Steve Komphela said his side have adversity for breakfast.

I say: Do the honourable thing chaps. Heineken Meyer. Shaky Mashaba. Russell Domingone. Apologise when you fail the nation. And resign if you can't turn things around.