I have been watching the performance of various national sports teams and it is an interesting exercise to contemplate what makes a winning team.

I am of the opinion that it is virtually entirely psychology.

We can look at rugby, cricket and soccer. By the time a group of players has been selected for a national squad, one can assume that the players are all very good from a physical point of view. At international level, you should not have to teach cricket players how to bat or soccer players how to kick. Yes, certainly, you can examine their technique and refine it, but they are already experts, or they would not be there in the first place.

If one employs a high-powered team of lawyers to tackle a very important court case, you do not have to teach them the law; they are qualified. Yes, you do have team meetings to decide on the tactics and approach to be used in court.

The same applies to sports teams, I think. Our soccer team, Bafana Bafana, is under pressure and the national coach, Shakes Mashaba, is being jumped on. I believe that Mashaba is the right fellow for the job. You should not entirely blame a coach for the team’s poor performance. You do not just blame the team leader, unless he clearly led them along an incorrect path and mandated an incorrect set of tactics.

On the soccer field, during a game, it is up to the team. If the coach has done his job, he could, in essence, stay at home on the big game day and just leave the team to itself.
If one could just buy a very expensive coach who would guarantee success, then every national team in the world would do just that. When South Africa appointed Joel Santana, a big-deal international coach, at huge expense, I did not like it from the first moment. Santana’s very heavy foreign accent was so unclear that I battled to understand him when he spoke on TV. How on earth the team ever understood complex tactical discussion with him I do not know.

I believe that we need a South African coach for South African soccer. I think Mashaba is the right guy. I said so in 2004, when he got the chop, and again in 2014, when he was reappointed.

However, a totally essential element is that the team must really want to play for the country. Does that sound silly? No. I was appalled when Shakes was planning to take Bafana Bafana to Australia and New Zealand and some players falsely reported sick because they would rather play for their foreign clubs, which paid big money.

For a Bafana Bafana player, it should be his absolute life’s dream to play for the national side. If a player does not want to play for the national side above everything else, then I totally agree if Shakes dumps him. I do not believe that 11 so-called ‘very good players’ will produce the best team.

What is most important is the team dynamics. If every player out of 11 wants to be the individual star featured in the newspapers, then the team will not come together as one unit. It is only one unit, with the correct psychology, that will win internationally, not 11 guys, each trying to be a star individually.

So, Mashaba needs time with the team unit. You cannot pull 11 guys together for three days and expect to form a cohesive unit. The unit must learn to live, move and breathe as one.

Of course, individual players must be good, and that starts in primary school. The country does not have enough structured school soccer. We need hundreds of thousands of youngsters playing formal soccer in school. In that way, naturally, good guys will rise to the top and become visible to club selectors.

I think that Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula should spend a lot more time looking at develop- ing school soccer than poking his fingers in at national level.

Apparently, Mashaba has a bit of an abrasive approach to the media, which does not endear him to them. I say: leave him alone and let him be a dictator. He must find players who want to play for their country with every living cell of their bodies. Then the team will be on the right path. Mashaba must shake, rattle and roll whoever he likes to find that team.