FOCUS ON 2023 AFCON QUALIFIERS

My dearest readers ...

Now that I have your attention, let me mention my intention this beautiful Tuesday morning. My intention is not to be a bearer of sad news or to cast aspersions on our national pride, Sihlangu Semnikati and neither am I advancing a defeatist mindset to Kostadin Papic and his boys. But I am a realist. After the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations draw was conducted in the Land of the Pyramids last Thursday night, handing Sihlangu a tough draw against the Teranga Lions of Senegal, the Leopards of Democratic Republic of Congo and the African Wild Dog of Guinea Bissau, I quickly retreated into my shell and counselled myself that expecting to qualify from this group was akin to trying to kill an elephant with a match stick.

Win

This grandson of Mlonyeni would win the Mr. Eswatini contest on a canter if Sihlangu were to qualify for the AFCON 2021 finals! Let us be realistic. All three opponents in Group I were recently taking part in the biennial continental showpiece in Egypt and one of them, Sadio Mane’s Lions of Teranga, were the losing finalists to Algeria last Friday. This is the same team that reached the quarter-finals of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. DR Congo reached the quarter-finals of the AFCON in 2015 while Guinea-Bissau are fresh from the 2019 AFCON where they were eliminated in the group stages.

Meanwhile, our national pride Sihlangu has NEVER qualified for AFCON finals, NEVER won the sub-continental COSAFA Cup or even reach its finals. Our only ‘crown’ (if it’s even worth saying this) remains the Toyota Challenge Cup in 1998. Over the years, we have seen a plethora of foreign coaches – some with names as weird as their owners – coming to our shores, tell us what we already know that without any proper development programmes, we are headed nowhere, fast and leave us swimming in the same pool of mediocrity. It has been a vicious cycle. Currently, we are ranked 141 in the FIFA rankings, below even Solomon Islands, Andorra, St Kitts and Nevis, Turkmenistan, Antigua and Barbuda; countries you can struggle to pin-point in the world map.

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