Top South African footballer buys into training camp logic
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Teko Modise, who usually captains the South African national football team Bafana Bafana when Aron Mokoena is unavailable, said on Sunday he now understands the logic behind coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, holding training camps overseas.
Bafana trained in Brazil during March and Germany during April, in addition to training in their home country.
Modise admitted to Football365 that he initially questioned the logic behind Bafana holding training camps overseas.
He was part of the group that went to Brazil and later on to Germany for camps that mostly comprised of local-based players.
"As a player, initially I thought Brazil is too far, why should we go there?"
However, since the recent defeat on Thailand in South Africa he begun to change his mind.
Before going on the camps Bafaba "had no shape and now when we play you can see we are able to keep the shape and that's one of the reasons we did so well against Thailand."
He says the Bafana players now realize how important such camps were.
"At times there may have been tension because it is not easy being only men, seeing the same faces for weeks, same guys every day, but it has been working out well and you can see by the way we play these days."
The 27-year-old, further drew comparisons with the Bafana team of 1996 that won the Africa Cup of Nations on home soil.
"The core of the team is local players. We have 18 in total out of the 30 players in the provisional squad and they want to show the coach and the country that they are capable of doing well for South Africa in the World Cup, same as the class of 1996 did, because they had lots of local players and did so well."
Modise said he thinks Bafan might exceed expectations, "because we have really struck an understanding thanks to the camps and I'm hoping we are going to do very, very well for the nation."
He said the players understand each other better now and that will be key in the World Cup.
"Now we are perfecting what we have been doing during the camps in Durban, Brazil and Germany. I just hope we will do even better against Bulgaria on Monday," he said.
