It’s all gloomy in the region

That is the candid view of Fifa development officer for Southern Africa, Ashford Mamelodi, who gave his frank assessment of the game in the region following the poor showing of the zone’s teams in the on-going World Cup qualifiers.

There is a strong likelihood that Southern Africa will be without a representative among the five slots that are allotted to Africa in the World Cup qualifiers when the 32 teams that will battle for the 2014 honours line up in Brazil.

Southern Africa’s flagship teams Zambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi and Angola have struggled in their respective groups as have been the rest of the teams such as Lesotho and Mozambique and Namibia.

It was a similar tale in the first World Cup to be hosted by Africa, the 2010 edition in South Africa where Southern African teams failed to make it.
There were also fewer Southern African teams in the back to back African Cup of Nations in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and in South Africa and Mamelodi warned that unless there was a massive paradigm shift in the way players in the region are being groomed, the future would remain bleak.

Mamelodi said he was concerned that the countries in the Southern African region and the continent at large put much of their attention and resources into their Premier Leagues.

“It is very sad that once again teams from the Cosafa region are struggling on the big international stage.
“I think it clearly shows that we are not putting enough investment into our youth structures.

“If you have very strong youth structures you will not go wrong with the seniors teams because you will indentify and nurture talent.
“But, sadly, there is just too much focus on the elite leagues only and a lot of the investment is put towards those leagues with very little going to the juniors,’’ Mamelodi said.

Zimbabwe has been one of the major culprits among those teams that have neglected their junior game with Zifa having failed to send both the Under-17 and the Under-20 teams to their African Youth Championships qualifiers in Congo and Angola respectively.

Mamelodi, who has been overseeing the development projects that are funded by Fifa through the Goal Bureau in Eastern and Southern Africa, has a strong passion for the region, which he also served as Cosafa secretary-general for a long time.

But Mamelodi believes the region’s teams would continue to score some sporadic successes like Zambia’s triumph that are not sustained for a long time if nothing is done to strengthen the conveyor belt of talent.

“We have to take a cue from what countries like Spain have done and it is not a surprise that they won the European championship and the World Cup.
“It is a result of taking deliberate steps to develop their youth and that is what we need to do on our continent,’’ Mamelodi said.

Mamelodi has also never hidden his admiration for Ghana’s development model that has seen the Black Stars remaining a huge force on the continent and were the last African country standing when they reached the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup.

Only on Wednesday, Ghana’s Black Satellites stunned fancied Portugal 3-2 to reach the World Under-20 Cup quarter-final that is currently underway in Kayseri, Turkey.
Ghana, whose vibrant youth policy has produced such players like Andrew “Dede’’ Ayew and current Black Stars skipper Asamoah Gyan, will now face Chile in Istanbul tomorrow for a place in the semi-finals.

But sadly for Southern African countries they can only be armchair viewers as none of them have an Under-20 side in Turkey.
Although it is looking gloomy for the Cosafa teams, 2012 African champions Zambia, Malawi and South Africa might just sneak into the final qualifying round of the current World Cup campaign if they top their groups after the final round of pool matches in September.

Chipolololo are second and one point behind Ghana in Group D while Ethiopia’s massive administrative boob in which they were docked of three points for using an ineligible player handed Bafana Bafana some hope that they could further benefit from results from the final round of matches.

Bafana Bafana remained second in Group A behind the Ethiopians who must beat Central African Republic on neutral soil to retain pole position.
Malawi are hoping to beat Nigeria and top their group.