Do or die weekend for Bafana Bafana

Bafana drew 0-0 with Gambia in Durban in their opening qualifier match in June, and now there will be increased pressure to produce a result away.

“As a leader, when you go to war you can’t say we’ll see how it goes. We drew our first game, so this is a must-win,” said Mashaba ahead of his side’s departure to Mauritania.

“People will talk about motivating the boys, the task at hand should be the thing motivating people. People must be motivated about what they’re going to do.”

Despite coming up against a team ranked 114th in the Fifa world rankings, Mashaba was confident his troops could do the business away from home.

“We prefer playing away. There are no pressures playing away. You know you have to go and fight against the odds where the crowd is behind the home team. You are all by yourself there, modern trends in football show you that playing away is better.”

In their tactical approach to the match, Bafana have been hard at work attempting to hold the ball for longer periods.

“We struggle to regain possession when we have lost the ball. That’s what we’re trying to address. We want to see how players combine, and how do players create and convert chances. We’re looking at scoring from crosses as well.”

Mauritania are a bit of an unknown quantity, but Mashaba said he would take his opponents seriously.

“We’ve done our homework, we’ve looked at them. We have looked at their previous records, but their most important result was when they went to Cameroon. They came back losing 1-0 and that tells you a lot. It’s not a group we can take lightly.”

Once again in the lead-up to the match, Bafana have been hit by withdrawals and injuries. Added to their difficult situation, Mashaba said there were a number of other issues which could affect their performance.

“The league has just started. Some of the players are unfit. We are still dragging, we’re not as sharp as we’re supposed to be. That’s why we’re training twice per day, to try jack up our sharpness.

“Sometimes you call up players and they’re injured. What about losing form? If that happens there’s nothing much you can do, you just hope in the future they’ll come right.”

Mashaba pointed out the scheduling was not ideal, with the SA under-23s also in action during the same time, meaning he could not select a number of youngsters.

“Unfortunately it’s a week where the under-23s are also playing, otherwise we would have another two or three players. But the PSL has 16 teams. The NFD has 16 teams. If you talk numbers, we’re not talking about anything less than 1000 players. You can’t tell me out of 1000 players you can’t select your best team.”

ANA