Win Afcon or your time with Banyana is up Vera
Vera in or Vera out? I’ve wondered for months in the build-up to Rio regarding the future of Banyana coach, Vera Pauw, says Mazola Molefe.
|||Vera in or Vera out? I’ve wondered for months in the build-up to the Rio Olympics regarding the future of our senior women’s team national team coach, Vera Pauw.
Perhaps I am being harsh to question her credentials following Banyana Banyana’s participation at the Olympic Games in Rio against top class opponents who simply have better quality players.
Ok, maybe Vera deserves credit for getting the team to the Games in the first place, and she apparently had some influence in securing a friendly game or two for South Africa in preparation for their encounters with Sweden, China and hosts Brazil.
And in my opinion, Banyana were always going to make up the numbers in Rio. Not really Vera’s fault. This country is so far behind with the development of women’s football that it will take some time before our national teams put up a convincing fight against their European counterparts.
But is there any accountability for Vera? There was much fanfare when she arrived in March 2014 to take over from Joseph Mkhonza, the first coach to lead the women’s team to an Olympic event by helping them book their ticket to the London Games two years earlier.
I have no doubt that appointing such a highly-regarded trainer was a major coup for the Safa, after all Vera is a former Dutch international with 89 caps to her name, the first female player from the Netherlands to sign a professional contract in Italy and her husband - Bert van Lingen - needs little introduction.
I mean no disrespect to Mkhonza, but Safa’s move to recruit Vera was a massive upgrade. Now that I’ve made it clear that I have nothing personal against the Banyana incumbent and that, from the start, I thought she would be a hit, I do think her time is up, especially if Banyana do not win the upcoming Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) scheduled to kick off in Cameroon in November. Allowing her to stay on after that would simply be embracing mediocrity. I am dead serious.
In what was her first major assignment not long after she arrived, Pauw took a team to Namibia for the previous edition of the Afcon. The mandate was quite clear, I believe. Take us to the 2015 World Cup, she was told.
She didn’t have to win the bloody thing to get her side there as all Banyana had to do was finish third to secure their place in Canada. By now you know the story - they didn’t. And Vera had one excuse after another and even had a fall-out with a journalist that had travelled with the team to Namibia for asking the hard questions. That journo wasn’t me in, case you are wondering.
Vera returned to SA with a contract that had expired and having failed to meet a pretty clear mandate. She was asked to stay on and - to her credit - managed to get Banyana to Rio.
I will be one of the first people to sing her praises if the national team dominate the Afcon and book a place at the 2019 World Cup in France. But I do get the sense that she has run her race and it might be time to hand over the baton, although I am quite desperate to see her succeed. You have it all to do, Vera.
@superjourno
Independent Media