Moorosi Tsiane
The national football team’s 4-0 humiliation by Angola in Wednesdays return leg of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) Group C qualifiers played in Luanda has, unsurprisingly, not gone down well with many Basotho, particularly because it came on the back of the players’ strike over allowances.
The heavy defeat left Likuena’s dream of qualifying for their first Afcon tournament in tatters, as Lesotho is now bottom of the four-nation group on two points, while leaders Gabon are on eight, second-placed Burkina Faso have seven and third-placed Angola have four. All the teams have played four matches and remain with two fixtures each.
With Lesotho’s outstanding fixtures being away against Gabon and home versus Burkina Faso, and with two teams from the pool guaranteed automatic qualification for the 2015 Afcon tournament, I don’t see Likuena making it.
However, it did not come as a surprise to me to see our national team playing so terribly against the Angolans on Wednesday night since I believe they did not leave the country mentally fit following their pay dispute with the Lesotho Football Association (Lefa).
The team arrived in Angola one day late due to their refusal to leave the country on Sunday because of the allowances issue. The players were demanding to be paid M5000 each before they could leave, while Lefa had offered them M600 apiece. Likuena only agreed to leave on Monday following the intervention of the Minister of Gender, Youth, Sports and Recreation, Thesele ‘Maseribane, which I believe he should have done before things got out of hand.
Playing away from home was not going to be easy at all especially against the wounded Palancas Negras who needed the points so terribly, so the players needed to be completely focused on the task at hand.
Although I don’t condone what the players did, I also condemn Lefa and our government, through the ministry of sports, for not having a clear budget for this team.
The only good result we could have hoped for was a draw because our players were not mentally fit to contain the Angolans, and they proved this on Wednesday through one of their worst displays since Seephephe Matete started coaching the team early this year.
Chief ‘Maseribane made it clear in his address on Monday when he persuaded the players to leave, that they were not expecting this team to succeed or reach this stage of the competition.
But how do you send your child to primary school and then fail to take him or her to high school? Because by admitting that government had not budgeted for Likuena’s group stage campaign, the minister was simply saying the expectation was that Likuena would not beat Liberia in that first match of the Afcon campaign.
Surely, this is not right; our leaders must start taking sport seriously if they really want to see this country excelling in these big competitions.
And for Lefa, the less said about them, the better. I really wonder if our football mother-body really has a marketing department or rather, any marketing strategies at all.
Our national team solely depends on yearly grants from the government, which should not be the case if Lefa had a proper marketing department because it would be sourcing real sponsorship for the association.
Lefa president Ntate Phafane once declared that he was soon going to name and shame the so-called lequloana who do not want to see our football growing. I just hope your association’s marketing team forms part of that list of lequloana.
I was also shocked to hear Lefa’s communications and marketing manager, Thabo Maretlane, calling our players (Tšepo Seturumane and Ralekoti Mokhahlane) mengala on one of the local radio stations just because they had decided not to be part of the team that went to Angola, due to the allowances fallout.
This was uncalled for because the players were simply exercising their right because some of these boys depend on football for their livelihood, and paying them a paltry M600 was simply an insult, to put it mildly.
And by failing to properly plan for Likuena, both Lefa and the government have failed the nation because this team was doing very well before the allowances debacle.
Having said that, I think since we now have nothing to lose, Matete should introduce young blood into the team for the two outstanding fixtures against Burkina Faso and Gabon, and start preparing for the 2017 Afcon and other upcoming tournaments, now.
Fielding youngsters in the two matches would give them international exposure that they are going to need going forward if we really want to build a team to compete not just participate as has always been the case.