IN his strongest comments yet on the appointment of his successor as the Bafana Bafana coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira on Monday declared it would amount to ‘four wasted years’ if Pitso Mosimane were not given the job.
At a media conference organised by Adidas in which he shared the platform with German icon Franz Beckenbauer in reviewing this week’s run-in to the World Cup programme, the urbane, cosmopolitan coach who guided Brazil to the World Cup title in 1994 and who has had six spells at the helm of various teams at Fifa’s pinnacle event, said it would be folly to look further than Mosimane, who had been one of his trusted assistants in taking South Africa’s national team a significant distance on the road towards maturity.Parreira went a step further and made the provocative suggestion that Brazilian Jairo Leal, who had been the other assistant coach during his tenure with Bafana, could be retained as Mosimane’s assistant – as well as the team’s Brazilian-born physical trainer, Francisco Gonzalez, who had done ‘a fantastic job in raising the fitness level of the players.’’My time with Bafana is over,’ said Parreira, who will be returning to Brazil at the end of the month, ‘but I see no reason why the rest of the technical team that has worked so well together and made such significant progress should now be split up.’Safa, meanwhile, have announced the next Bafana coach would be a South African and that Mosimane was the preferred initial candidate for what is commonly termed the team’s ‘hot seat’, but have taken what many see as a questionable and unnecessary course of naming a motley technical team to decide on his suitability for the role.Parreira, at the same time, expressed pride in Bafana’s performance at the World Cup in spite of the team gaining the dubious honour of becoming the first host nation in 80 years not to qualify for the second round of the competition.’In order to gauge accurately Bafana’s achievement,’ added Parreira, ‘it is necessary in the first instance to take into account the very difficult first-round group in which South Africa found themselves – one that included two former World Cup winners in Uruguay and France and would have tested the mettle of almost any of the 32 teams competing in the tournament.’And,’ he added, ‘it is also necessary to take into account from where Bafana were coming – a ranking of 93rd in the world – yet able to hold a team of Mexico’s calibre to a draw and beat France.’The articulate, normally diplomatic Parreira shadow-boxed his way out of joining the army of critics of axed Brazilian coach Carlos Dunga for the five-times champions bowing out in the quarter-finals – ‘Dunga was my captain when we won the World Cup in 1994,’ said Parreira while back-peddling from the issue. ‘How can I say anything about him.’Parreira also revealed he would be taking a break from soccer until the end of the year. Afterwards he would consider a number of options – which included accepting offers he had to coach a number of Brazilian clubs, offers from a number of countries to coach their national teams or retire permanently after a career in soccer’s big-time of more than 40 years.- Nampa-Sapa
