Football a very tactical sport, and yet more decorated and entertaining when it’s played less tactically. From the hot South American beaches and streets of Brazil, to the brown and dusty township grounds of South Africa, all southern but the quality of skills ranks up there at the top. “Skills” in football is not a farfetched definition but yet can be two sided, but when it comes to these two nations; Brazil and South Africa “skill” to them is a significant way of making love to the beautiful sphere ball. It’s how they tell their love story.
A skill in their definition is “dribbling” or better said “flair”, and they continuously add weight to it. The beautiful game of football continuously keeps on evolving, from the Dutch playing “Total Football” and the Spanish and the Catalans playing and dominating the footballing scenes for a few numbers of years with their “Tiki-Taka” style of play.
The Styles of play has seen South Africa labelling their display of showboating and flamboyance as “kasi Flavour”, Kasi being referred to as the townships.
This type of football has been the key to drawing fans to the stadiums from the early 70’s till today but many have questioned the reason behind the growing number of empty seats at stadiums and besides considering the factor that broadcaster have made it easier for us to select from a variety of matches to watch from almost the biggest leagues of the world. But with that being considered the teams from outside have huge crowds of supporters as the 12-man factor to the teams. And with fairness they justify that by stating that their teams possess the necessary quality of players. Barcelona fans know they're going to see Messi score not 1 but two to three goals and Suarez nutmeg the opposition, Neymar displaying his homeland qualities which is Flair. Real Madrid fans are assured to see a few step overs from Cristiano Ronaldo, and some trickery by Marcelo and champaign passes by Modric.
But what do South African‘s players and teams offer to their supporters? Yes we know it’s important to win but flair has forever been the style of play for South Africans that cannot be taken away or erased. Most analyst have considered it a tactical setback when teams field skilful players from the get go, they state that the players are consistently displaying flair sometimes when it’s not necessary so they believe that when a player is holding on to ball longer than they are supposed to they slow down the teams momentum going forward and tactically it’s usually not aligned with the team’s tactics.
Bringing in flair or better said in South African terms “kasi flavour” in play should be a tactically approach, but in most cases teams allow players to do so when they up and leading with a comfortable goal margin. Some do apply the “kasi flavour” moving forward with play and they use it as a tool of creating goal scoring opportunities and also to minus the opposition number. A few players who have given coaches that tactical satisfaction is Sifiso Myeni, George Lebese, Thabo Qalinge, Khama Billiat, and Sifiso Vilakazi just to name a few. They are mostly wide/winger players and they are tasked with stretching play, so for them, going forward is always going to be contested so that’s when the opposition’s full back comes in the picture and as the winger you have to see your way past the defender. That’s when the “kasi flavour” magic works.
The latest discovery of flamboyance to the PSL has been Orlando Pirates’ Thabo Rakhale, after making a return from Polokwane City where he was loaned he started to feature in the Multichoice Diski Challenge where he built his confidence and now he is plying his trades of ”kasi flavour” in the PSL. Not so long ago “Jomo” as he is nicknamed executed a beautiful “yo-yo” trickery which had the footballing society going wild and the skill getting worldwide recognition.
From back in the days of Professor Ngubane, Jomo Sono, 16v Doctor Khumalo, China Masondo and Zane Moosa; they had crowds filling up the stadiums till the touchline with their exciting brand of football and the following generation also lived up to expectations when it came flair, flamboyance trickery or showboating, whatever you call it but best said as “Kasi Flavour”. The likes of Jabu Pule (now Mahlangu), Steve Lekolea, Stanton Fredrick, Thabiso “Skaaps” Malatsi they followed up and continued the brilliance of “kasi Flavour”.
They too, weren't the last to grace the soccer fraternity with wonderful scenes of showboating or better said with some "kasi flavour", next to follow was an exciting East Rand Amakhosi discovery, the late Emmanuel Asanda "Scara" Ngobese who was a pleasure to watch for both Kaizer Chiefs fans and rival teams in the PSL. The only coach that brought out the best of Scara Ngobese was non other than Ted Dumitru, as coach who knew and understood the culture of flamboyance and flair of South Africans. Yet another soul that was responsible for filling up those grandstands. May he continue to rest in peace.
The question of success for South Africa and its national teams should not be shadowed by our footballing identity or the way players express themselves as players or how they express their comfort with the ball. Brazil, Spain and, in much fairness and less accolades Holland has tasted quite enough success to justify that their style of play and that it is their identity and better said their winning strategy.
Winning methods in football are forever changing and sometimes re-used and for us as South Africa, if we do find tactical approaches to playing the South African way we should not turn a blind eye to it because I believe it’s important to widen our tactical awareness together with our technical abilities and football knowledge. South Africans should not embrace the question in thought, of whether to forbid and forsake the beautiful style of play we as supporters continuously keep on falling in love with. Performing a trick in a stationery position won’t have the winning train motion but surely the winning mentality in our skin.
By Vuyolethu Sithatu
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