Johannesburg: The uninformed South African football fan would have found the refrain coming from the Bafana Bafana camp this week a tad surprising.
Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba has repeatedly spoken of the importance of not underestimating Mauritania. “We cannot afford to take them lightly,” he said at every given opportunity.
Even his players have added to the chorus, with Mandla Masango talking of how hard an encounter their 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against the north-west African country would be.
“It’s going to be a tough encounter because Mauritania are an unknown nation to us, we haven’t played them before,” he said. “We are well aware of how they played against Cameroon in their opening qualifier, so we cannot afford to take things for granted, we should go there and give it our all.”
Mashaba also based his assertion that tomorrow’s opposition should be taken seriously on the fact they held their own against Cameroon. But Mauritania’s rise from the continent’s whipping boys to a side that now enjoys the respect of former African champions didn’t come about overnight.
The change has its roots in what is usually frowned upon by world football’s governing body FIFA: Political interference. Some six years ago, the country’s president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz moved to turn his country’s footballing fortunes for the better by insisting the federation appoint men capable of leading Mauritania from the bottom rung of the ladder.
Enter Frenchman Patrice Neveu, and soon the desert country was mixing it up with Africa’s best at the African Nations’ Championships in South Africa last year.
Granted they lost all three of their matches, but for Mauritania the fact they had qualified for their maiden CAF tournament was a sign they were on the right track. And they beat Mauritius and Equatorial Guinea in their bid to qualify for the 2015 AFCON before they came unstuck against Uganda.
They are building on those experiences and showed in their opening match of the 2017 qualifiers that they will not be easy to beat, when the Indomitable Lions needed a late goal to overcome them.
At home in Nouakchott tomorrow afternoon against a South African side that had a stuttering start to their campaign, Mauritania will definitely believe they can shock their highly-regarded visitors.
Coach Corentin Martins and his men won’t be intimidated by the fact they are a massive 16 spots behind their opponents in the world rankings and will look to take the game to Bafana, who failed to score against Gambia.
But Mashaba’s men are aware anything less than victory will put them under serious pressure for their remaining qualifiers. With qualification limited to the group winners and the top two runners-up, Bafana know that they need to get off the mark if they are to make it.
Masango, who made a scoring debut for his Danish side Randers last weekend, believes they are up to the challenge.
“We have a good group of players, full of confidence and a lot of experience, but we have to put that to good use and ensure we return victorious, and we are positive we will get the results we want because a negative result will set us back big time in the qualifiers,” he said.
Mauritania, on the other hand, will be keen to continue on their upward rise. - Cape Times