Former Bafana Bafana assistant coach Morena Ramoreboli believes the South African national team needs to adapt to methods DStv Premiership log leaders Mamelodi Sundowns are applying, in order to develop a unique Bafana style of play.
Ramoreboli led Bafana Bafana to their fifth COSAFA Cup title in 2021, after defeating Senegal 5-4 on penalties at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium. The current Jwaneng Galaxy head coach says despite having a lot of players from Masandawana in the national team, there’s still a need for the national team to adapt certain elements of the Sundowns way of football.
“The only thing that I think it’s happening at the moment, is the high number of players from Sundowns who form part of the Bafana national squad. I still believe that honestly, Bafana need to adapt certain elements of the Sundowns game. Because it’ll help the country in terms of building our own model [of play],” he told ThisIsFootball.Africa.
In some countries like Spain, selecting a core of players from one team and using that teams philosophy produced good results. In 2010 Spain selected eight players from Barcelona and played a similar style of play to Barcelona at the time. The result was that Spain won the World Cup for the first time in their history. Two years later the same team won the Euros with the same core of the team.
Sundowns have been playing continental football consistently for the past eight years and are dominating the PSL. The Tshwane giants are one of the favourite teams to win this year’s CAF Champions League after hammering North African side Al Ahly 5-2 on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld. Ramoreboli believes that Masandawana head coach Rulani Mokwena should have a seminar with SAFA in order to help them implement a style of play.
“I think what coach Rulani has done is to play to the strength of all the players that he has at his club,”
“We need maybe more of a symposium, more of a workshop where Sundowns will be saying, can we try our model with SAFA so that [they can] adopt what they are doing as a country. This I think could probably work.”
However, the Bloemfontein-born coach says the country needs to select the types of players who would be suitable to play in a similar fashion to how Sundowns play. Even if those players are not playing for the Brazilians.
“We firstly need to find a common way of doing things. We need to profile the types of players we have in South Africa, and after profiling the players that’s when we can say this is the kind of football we want [to play], and this is the kind of players we need.” he added.
When Ramoreboli was asked about Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates not having a significant amount of players in the national team, he said: “Tactics are different and what Chiefs and Pirates are doing in their respective club teams and what coach Hugo Broos requires from his players is different.”
Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has selected ten players from Mamelodi Sundowns in the preliminary squad that’s expected to face Liberia in two AFCON qualifications on Friday 24 March at Orlando Stadium and 28 March in Liberia. Broos will announce his final squad on Thursday afternoon.
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