International News

Igesund heading to England

Igesund: To conduct overseas talks

Igesund: To conduct overseas talks

Bafana Bafana coach Gordon Igesund will meet with England-based players and their clubs to discuss their potential African Cup of Nations involvement next year.

------------------------------------------------------------

Predict result and win big with Soccer6

------------------------------------------------------------

Igesund, along with his assistant Serame Letsoaka, will leave shortly after announcing the South Africa squad to face reigning African champions Zambia on November 14 at the FNB Stadium.

During their visit of the United Kingdom the two coaches will hold meetings with managers of the likes of Crystal Palace's Kagisho Dikgacoi, Oldham's Dean Furman and several others.

"According to FIFA rules, the players can only report for national duty 14 days before the start of the AFCON tournament," Igesund said.

"In this case, it will be the fifth of January.

"Our main aim in England will be to try and get the players released early from their clubs so they can join us at least 21 days before the start of Afcon.

"That means we would like to assemble the team around the Christmas festive period.

"This would be the perfect time to mould them into a unit because the past four matches have been mainly to look at different players and combinations."

He added: "South Africa will reciprocate by not calling up some of those players when their clubs have important fixtures in future.

"If we can get 60 percent of them on time, that will be an achievement. I believe with communication, sincerity and support we can make this happen."

Igesund also hopes to meet with Andrew Surman and discuss Norwich attacker's future with the national side, as well as possibly sitting down with former Bafana skipper Steven Pienaar.

"I believe it is my responsibility to go and see him, find out from him whether he still wants to play for South Africa," Igesund said.

"I am not going there to beg him to play for us because if he is not interested then he won't deliver.

"I am also aware that he was approached before to represent Bafana Bafana but it just never happened, so we need to get to the bottom of this so we can move on.

"He is a very good player who has played for England at junior level, so it would be great to have him on board."

Posted: 03/11/12 13:52

Post A Comment!

Be the first to post a comment on this story


Character Count : 0/1900


Copyright © TEAMtalk Media Group 2012     Pictures from Getty Images, Backpagepix and Gallo