Former Bafana Bafana defender Nasief Morris believes there shouldn't be any obsession about whether the next senior national team coach is local or foreign because the challenges that will face him run deeper.
The Bafana job is vacant now after SAFA sacked Molefi Ntseki and there has been mention of Carlos Queiroz, Herve Renard and Pitso Mosimane as potential candidates to take over.
The appointment of the new man in charge is a matter of urgency as the qualifiers for next year's FIFA World Cup in Qatar begin in under two months in Group G, which features Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia.
"I think that it doesn't matter where the next coach comes from, but it has to be someone with the right ideas and plan. Whoever is best will be suitable. If our local coaches are capable then they should get an opportunity, but the decision must be based on what is best for the country. The people in charge of making the decisions must do so for the right reasons," Morris tells snl24.com/kickoff.
See all the names that have been linked to the Bafana job in recent weeks
The retired defender was capped 37 times through a career that took him to Panathinaikos in Greece and the Spanish La Liga at his prime.
"There has to be a plan in place before we think about a coach because there is no point in bringing in a coach when there is no plan in place. It is impossible to achieve anything when you are constantly changing your plan and changing coaches," he adds.
"The decision that will be made on who is going to be the coach will be crucial because it must be someone who has an idea of what he wants to do and what the plan should be for the next four to five years. You cannot have a plan in place and then change a coach after one year or two years because results are not forthcoming.
"In football when you have a plan there will be obstacles that you need to cross but then we must stick to our plan and be sure it will improve. The problem with a lot of our people is that we expect success to happen overnight.
"In having a four or five-year plan, it shouldn't mean we must not try and qualify for next year's World Cup but then if we don't make it nobody should be disappointed because we have a plan in place for the next one.
"What is important is that there must a structure which starts from the bottom all the way up to the top. You cannot fix something from the top when it is broken from the bottom. If you don't have quality coming through the junior ranks you will not be successful at the senior level.
"All around the world there is progression of players from the junior national teams, but we haven't had that for a while now and it just shows we have a big problem in our development structures in the country."