It’s a day before their Olympic opener, and now the South African Under-23 side know who their leader will be against hosts Brazil.
Midfielder Keagan Dolly has been announced as the captain by coach Owen da Gama for the Olympics, having led the side during the qualifying tournament in Senegal late last year as well.
Dolly has had to miss a large part of the Under-23s’ preparations for the Games due to club commitments with Mamelodi Sundowns in recent months, but there was no doubt in Da Gama’s mind that the silky 23-year-old was the right man for the job.
Defenders Rivaldo Coetzee and Kwanda Mngonyama have been named as vice-captains, with Dolly having taken over the outright captaincy from Mngonyama during the Senegal competition.
“Dolly has grown as a player in the past few months, and don’t forget he captained the side through the qualifiers in Senegal late last year. When we started with preparations of the Olympic qualification phase, Kwanda Mngonyama was the captain, while Rivaldo Coetzee led the Cosafa Cup squad,” Da Gama told the Safa website on Wednesday.
“This shows we have many leaders in the squad, but only one player can wear the armband on the day. It is for those reasons that we believe these three are more suitable and capable of leading the team.
“We are also fortunate that Bafana Bafana captain Itumeleng Khune is with us – a clear indication of the abundance of leaders we have in this team, but the most important thing that players need to remember is that they are all captains, on and off the field, and all need to be exemplary.”
It will be interesting to see whether Da Gama opts for Khune in goal ahead of Jody February, who was the goalkeeper during the Olympic qualifiers. Khune said earlier this week that he hopes his presence in the squad “influences the team positively, on or off the field, whether I play or not”.
But Da Gama will want to have his best possible defence in place to counter the Brazilian attack that will be led by Barcelona’s star striker Neymar at the Mané Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia on Thursday (9pm SA time kickoff).
Apart from Khune, his Kaizer Chiefs teammate Erick Mathoho could line up in central defence alongside Coetzee, with possibly Abbubaker Mobara at right back and one of Tebogo Moerane and Tercious Malepe at left back.
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