Johannesburg – It’s the Fifa international week and this weekend’s Soccer Scene platform’s content will address a potpourri of footballing topics.
The content is a mix, dear readers, with various burning issues addressed.
First things first, last week I dealt with European clubs refusing to release players to represent their countries in the World Cup qualifiers.
This comes at a time all of Fifa’s continental federations’ countries, 211 of them to be exact, open their quest to qualify for the next world football showpiece in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar next November, but only 32 will make the cut.
The Europeans, led by English Premier League clubs, are adamant.
They are sticking to their guns and as late as Thursday had barred their players from travelling to their respective countries to play in the crucial qualifiers.
It’s troubling, indeed.
• Former Bafana Bafana veteran striker Mark Williams, one of the stars of the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations championship- winning team, launched his biography titled From Gangster to Soccer Legend.
Controversially, Williams, undoubtedly a Mzansi football legend in his own right but also notorious for speaking his mind, says there is so much jealousy among SA soccer “legends” it is unbelievable. There is no support of one another’s projects, it’s just a case of “black man, you’re on your own”.
Williams says that some former Bafana players cry out loud for the tag legend, while having played one or two matches.
Tough, hey?
• The inaugural Cosafa Women’s Champions League is coming to a close after over three weeks of women’s football, and the high-riding Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies are poised to lift the trophy judging by the manner in which they have come out into the final. They have been unscathed and a victory for the women’s club will see them contest and represent the southern African region in the first-ever CAF Women’s Champions League. Big ups to the Downs ladies.
• Coming to player transfer, the new season’s player transfer window closed on Tuesday at midnight. Amazingly, there was still talk that SuperSport United star midfielder Sipho Mbule, a versatile player will be making a last-minute dash signing to join Kaizer Chiefs at Naturena.
Alas, Mbule is still a Matsatsantsa player. It could be the move has been shelved to the next transfer window period in January.
For now, he stays put to help United try and win silverware. Bizarrely, many clubs are still talking of signing up players although the door is closed. Are we missing something?
• Talk is rife that Al Ahly assistant coach Cavin Johnson is on his way to Orlando Pirates to take over the hot seat vacated by German Josef Zinnbauer. With Mandla Ncikazi steering the Sea Robbers’ ship, is there a need for Zinnbauer to be replaced? Only time will tell. While many have maintained that Bucs should continue with Ncikazi and Fadlu Davids at the helm, there is still no clarity on the plans by the club regarding the technical team.
• The technical team changes effected at Amakhosi just before the start of the 2021/22 season have claimed their first casualty. Chiefs chief scout, the much-decorated Walter Steenbok, has to vacate his position to give way to former Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki, who is now the head of technical and scouting.
• In closing this platform, another sad football episode is set to hit the people of the Free State. The die-hard football followers, the staunch supporters of the game in that province, are seemingly going to lose another team with Mangaung United put up for sale.
United remain one of the oldest teams in the Mangaung region and campaign in Safa’s lowly ABC Motsepe League. A worrying and sad state of affairs.
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