By Ayanda Nyuswa
The President of the South African Football Association Dr Danny Jordaan believes the coaching stability in South Africa’s national football teams has been the key to the recent success we have witnessed across the board. The SAFA leader welcomed South Africa’s under 20 Football team “Amajita” back home after their heroics at the Under 20 Africa Cup of Nations, in a special ceremony at the OR Tambo International Airport on Tuesday morning. Amajita had a historic run at the youth tournament in Egypt, winning 5 of their seven matches which climaxed with a 1-0 victory over Morocco in the final.
Amajita head coach Raymond Mdaka has joined the legendary Clive Barker and Dr Desiree Ellis in winning the holy grail of African football, after their wins with Bafana Bafana (1996) and Banyana Banyana (2022) respectively. Mdaka, 55, has been part of the SAFA ranks for many years, working particularly in youth football. Jordaan, speaking at Amajita’s home coming ceremony, has attributed the success of the national football teams to the coaching stability that exists within the respective teams. The 73-year old cited Mdaka’s long reign in the youth set up, and equally the lengthy stays of Desiree Ellis and Hugo Broos as they key factor in the success of national the teams.
“I think the question always is, why are the teams performing now? I must just tell you, Desiree I don’t know how many years as a coach you have been at SAFA, ten or 20 years. Raymond Mdaka here, the under 20 coach has been with SAFA and the under 20 for twenty years. Hugo Broos is now going over his first 4 years, and so we can go on. Therefore, it is clear that coaching stability, having a coach persuing a particular project is one of the major success stories. I want to thank all the coaches here and particularly Raymond Mdaka here, he was voted the best coach in the CAF AFCON,” said Jordaan.
