National senior soccer team coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba was quite correct in giving May Mahlangu the chop when the player announced that he was not available to play for Bafana Bafana in recent Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
So, from me, go for it, Shakes – keep it up. I was driving when I listened to a late-night radio phone-in show in which listeners debated the issue. Most congratulated Shakes. More were emotional, clearly upset. Some people said that Mahlangu should have been given a chance to explain himself to a panel – something like appearing before a court of law. No, not at all.
The job of the coach is not a democratic position – it should be totally autocratic. If Shakes fails to get the team in shape and later gets axed himself, then the system would have axed him. The system would not blame him and his ‘team of advisers’ or ‘court of law’ that may have overridden his decisions. To my mind, any player who shows the slightest hesitation in playing after having been called up should be axed.
In fact, such a player should be banned for life. Am I sounding rather hash? Maybe, but it is intentional. Any young child who plays soccer at school should have as his dream the ultimate chance to play for the national side. Such a chance never comes to most children, so, when a soccer player gets such a chance, it should be grabbed with the greatest of enthusiasm. If the chance is then missed and never comes again, then that is life.
So, why is a nuclear physicist talking about soccer? It is because I know how systems operate. A smoothly running system delivers the optimum results. I have, at times, spent the entire night twiddling just one or two screws until the device was purring like a dream. Look how the Formula One racing car mechanic teams work on those high-powered cars, adjusting and tuning until those incredible machines scream with power.
A soccer team is the same. A team is much more than 11 players on the field. It is a finely tuned system that interacts to deliver results. When players play in a team, they get to know the fine detail of the other players. They can interpret the mood and moves of the other players. Much of this happens without them realising it – it is subliminal. What this means is that the one player’s brain picks up almost invisible signals from another player’s body movements.
It is like two dancers doing ballroom dancing. As the one dancer moves, even the slightest amount, the other dancer’s body just picks up the signals and starts to move in sync. Dancers do not have the time to explain to each other what they are about to do – their two bodies just have to move as one. It is beautiful to watch. A really good soccer team is the same; the team is more than 11 individuals – it is a single unit that moves like one force.
If our national side is going to become a world-class team, then it has to develop to move as one unit. This is only going to be achieved by a team which is really proud to play together, and which really wants to play together. You cannot have a ‘team’ in which 11 individuals decide when it suits them to be part of the team or not. That is not team spirit. So, Shakes is perfectly correct in having the objective of building team spirit. He has to do that, or he will fail.
Team spirit does not come about when a disciplinary committee orders a person to play. Team spirit comes about when a player goes down on his knees and pleads with the coach to be given a chance. Ten years ago, Shakes got into trouble for demanding a team spirit approach. I wrote a newspaper article in support of him then. I support his actions now. He has to build a single well-oiled machine. It cannot have any wonky parts – no fatigued bearings, or the whole thing will come apart.