Motale believes standard of striker coaching should improve in SA

By Ayanda Nyuswa

Former Bafana Bafana defender Edward “Magents” Motale believes the standard of striker coaching in South Africa needs to improve in order to combat the lack of goals among South African strikers.

Magents, a CAF Champions League winner with Orlando Pirates in 1995, was speaking on Extra time on Gagasi FM after Bafana Bafana’s disappointing 1-1 draw against a lowly ranked Andorra side in a FIFA Series international friendly match.

Hugo Broos fielded a make-shift  Bafana team that failed to get the better of the 164th ranked European side. Goalkeeper Ricardo Goss failed to control a back pass which was punished by Andorran attacker Ricardo Fernandez after six minutes of play. Attacker Elias Mokwana produced a composed finish in the box, with 25 minutes gone in the first period, to bring the AFCON Bronze medalists back on level terms, and neither side managed to find the killer blow to grab the victory.

After the match, the Belgian coach Hugo Broos lamented the lack of genuine South African goal-scorers who have a “killer instinct”, after seeing a number of missed chances in the match. Motale has echoed Broos’ sentiments and believes the standard of striker coaching is very poor in South Africa, and more goalscoring mentors should be hired to combat the problem.

“The problem is we don’t have striker coaches at our level, we have got goalkeeper coaches but we don’t have striker coaches,” said Motale.

“We just hope that Lyle (Foster) can do this, Tau can do that, Mabasa can do this, Lepasa can do that. Even at national level we don’t have a striker coach. I think maybe they must standardize that department at the high level that it is compulsory, you need to have a striker coach. Year in year out we are struggling, we are struggling at league level. Our leading goalscorers in our league are foreign players,” Magents added.

Bafana Bafana will play Algeria in their second league FIFA Series encounter on Tuesday, 26 March 2024.