The 2010 soccer World Cup tournament is looming and our national soccer team, Bafana Bafana, is not doing too well. It is worrying.

Unfortunately, I think that it is time to get rid of the coach, Joel Santana. This is not a new thought of mine – I disapproved of his appointment, in the first place.

My position is that I do not believe that one can buy success by buying an expensive coach. If that was the way it worked, every team in the world would just, in effect, buy a place in the final.

By the time any person reaches the status of achieving a place in any national team, such a person knows how to play the game, just like members of a national squad of chefs know how to cook or members of a national ballroom dancing squad know how to dance. One does not need to teach a national squad the fundamental skills of the game – these they know by the time they make it to that level.

So what does a national squad need? They need two interventions: the first is to mutually discuss tactics and the second is team spirit and self-confidence.

The tactics and general strategic game plan can alter with every game because each opposing team is different. So a competent team should have watched as many videos of a potential opposing team as possible and should have studied as much of its game plan as possible.

Then the whole team decides on the tactics to be employed, with the coach providing a guiding function. Compare this with a board of directors deciding how a company should carry out an expansion plan. It is not only the CEO who should make the decisions – all members of the board should bring their individual expe- riences and talents into the debate. A soccer team is no different.

The coach is not a god – he will not have all the answers. A professional team must come up with a tactical plan together, the result of team interaction. Now we look at the other issue, team spirit and self-confidence. A soccer team cannot be seen as 11 individuals; it is one team, one unit. If the team does not play as one cohesive unit, it will lose. To my mind, it is pointless to be replacing two or three players each week, in the hope that, somehow, one, two or three other individuals will make the team win.

It is well known that, if one chooses the apparent best 11 players in the world, from 11 different teams, which then plays against any other top-class team that has been playing together for a while, the World 11 will almost always lose. The cohesive team is better than 11 individuals. Our guys need self-confidence, which means feeling like one South African unit. So, to my mind, we need a South African coach, a guy who can say to the team: “Okay, guys, let us win for our country.”

I believe that former Bafana Bafana coach Clive Barker should be invited back. He has led a former national team to winning glory, and can really be one of the boys – he is South African.

Years ago, before Bafana Bafana won under Barker, I was doing a job that required me to stay in a hotel for a few days.

The first night I was in the hotel pub and I discovered that the whole Bafana Bafana team was staying there for a coaching session.

It was a hot night. After an hour, I found myself sitting on the steps outside in the moonlight, next to Barker. We sat and talked about how one coaches a team like that. I remember well that the major issue we agreed on was that the magic elements of team spirit and team cohesion were major elements in winning – not just the technical talents of individual players.

I believe that South Africa still has time to turn Bafana Bafana into a star team. We saw phases of excellent play in the Confede- rations Cup. I think that it was the general spirit and the enchantment of the home crowd that made our guys pull together with star qua- lity. So the quality is there. We just need to get it to show. For that, we need a South African coach who speaks the language of our sun, sky and dusty bush. We need to drag Barker back, give him the baton and then leave him and the team alone.

•This article was written prior to Santana’s resignation.