{"id":692,"date":"2014-01-21T20:24:49","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T20:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=692"},"modified":"2014-01-21T20:24:49","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T20:24:49","slug":"dont-criticize-bafanabafana-president-zuma-tells-sports-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/dont-criticize-bafanabafana-president-zuma-tells-sports-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"”Don’t criticize Bafanabafana” president Zuma tells sports minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what looks like a direct response to Sports minister Fikile Mbalula’s public criticism of the South Africa’s national soccer team’s performance in their CHAN 2014 1-3 loss to Nigeria, President Jacob Zuma has applauded the Bafanabafanad’s outing at the tournament.<\/p>\n

President Zuma said during an interview that the team has improved and needed more support, adding that team coach Gordon Igesund knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n

“We’re well aware that some people are criticising the way the national team played against Nigeria. The current coach knows what he’s doing. He’s great at his job.”<\/p>\n

“We’re well aware that some people are criticising the way the national team played against Nigeria. The current coach knows what he’s doing. He’s great at his job.” The president added.<\/p>\n

It would be recalled however, that Sports minister Fikile\u00a0Mbalula singled out substitute goalkeeper Moeneeb Josephs for criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Josephs,but I don\u2019t know what was going on with him yesterday. I
\nmean he committed a mistake alone; he reminded me of the Frenchman that
\nwe naturalised and made South African, basically scoring two own-goals.”<\/p>\n

The side of locally based players was also called “useless” and a “bunch of losers” by the country’s sports minister.<\/p>\n

Hosts home based South African players were knocked out of the tournament after they lost 1-3 to their counterparts from Nigeria\u00a0in Cape Town on Sunday.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what looks like a direct response to Sports minister Fikile Mbalula’s public criticism of the South Africa’s national soccer team’s performance in their CHAN 2014 1-3 loss to Nigeria, President Jacob Zuma has applauded the Bafanabafanad’s outing at the tournament. President Zuma said during an interview that the team has improved and needed more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[84,60],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":695,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions\/695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}