Dumitru backs youngsters

By Farayi Mungazi
BBC Sport, Cairo

Dumitru is confident South Africa can cause surprises in Egypt

As befits a man under the watchful gaze of a nation highly suspicious of his game-plan, South Africa coach Ted Dumitru has told BBC Sport that he has no reservations about his Nations Cup squad.

Dumitru astounded fans when he snubbed a host of megastar names and picked a 23-man party with more new faces than a plastic surgery clinic for Egypt 2006.

Players like Tshepo Masilela and Daniel Tshabalala might not be instantly recognisable but most of the fuss has been made about the absence of Aaron Mokoena and the shock call-up of Pierre Issa.

Mokoena quit the team after falling out with Dumitru while Issa has not kicked a ball in anger for months due to a club contract dispute in Greece.

But after seeing Bafana Bafana beat Egypt 2-1 in a friendly in Cairo on Saturday through goals from Issa and Benni McCarthy, Dumitru insisted that "my team will cause surprises in this tournament."

Speed, creativity and technique is what you need Ted Dumitru

In an ideal world, Dumitru would prefer not to throw a bunch of untried players in at the deep end, but he nonetheless rounded on critics advising South Africans to keep boxes of tissues at the ready.

"Some people are living in the past but football moves forward. We never said we're going to win the tournament but take it from me, we're going to create surprises," he said.

The Romania-born coach told BBC Sport that given the fact that some of his players are very short and small, they would have to be more creative against giant-laden opponents like Tunisia.

He said: "Size is not important in football today. Speed, creativity and technique is what you need. The best club team in the world is Barcelona and their average height is 1.74m."

Once one of the most respected teams in African football, the 1996 African champions have been truly awful of late and their failure to qualify for the World Cup served only to strengthen the notion that they are a team going nowhere fast.

But Dumitru rejects the idea that Bafana Bafana are in danger of losing their place among the African elite and become a byword in football mediocrity.

"All the hard work we've been doing means we're a tactically better team. We use our speed and ball touches in attack as you saw against Egypt. No team can beat us using Egypt's style of play."