‘The Dogg Barks' - Column 3 September 11, 2009 Clive Barker makes a shift from his duties with Usuthu and looks at Bafana Bafana’s progress in recent friendly matches. The stats suggest our national team is at it most difficult period as other nations play their qualifying matches while South African football fans hold their breath.

”The results have been disappointing, and Joel Santana will argue that he has selected stronger opposition in his preparation for the 2010 World Cup.

However football is all about confidence and when you consistently suffer defeat, you lose self-belief in the technical team, and ultimately your teammates.

What Santana needs to do now is to start playing against not-so strong opposition and in the run into the World Cup he needs to get some winning results. This will ensure the country and the supporters as a whole believe in the team again and that will manifest itself in the way the team performs.

Football is a very funny game. When we played Spain and Brazil in the Confederations Cup, most critics agreed that we gave a good performance even though we didn’t win.

The Serbia and Germany games were very disappointing, but in should be noted that both countries are rated in the top 10 in the world rankings.

The pressure will always be there for a national coach and Santana is aware of that, I just hope he has the ability to get through this very awkward period. I applaud the way he has consistently selected the majority of the squad that played in the Confed.

I’m still baffled about by the continued non-selection of Nasief Morris. I find it difficult to comprehend why he has been left out next to Benni McCarthy. Morris has played well in the Spanish La Liga and will make a difference at the back. So would the presence of Benni in the striking department.

We would only have to look at the selection of McCarthy/ Benard Parker/ Richard Henyekane/ Katlego Mphela to solve our goal drought problem.

I have no doubt that McCarthy/ Steven Pienaar would give us the class that is lacking in Bafana Bafana at the moment.

Usuthu!"