Bafana coach Broos finds silver lining amid the gloom

SA has a team again, Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos said, highlighting the immense positives that should emerge from the gloom after his side’s match officiating-affected exit from the 2022 World Cup.

Broos pointed out that his young team have surpassed expectations, and then some, going into their final match away against Ghana in Cape Coast on Sunday night top of Qatar 2022’s African qualifying Group G by three points.

Ghana progressed by the narrowest of margins to the final, single-tie round of qualifying.

Their 1-0 win, thanks to Andre Ayew’s hotly disputed 33rd-minute penalty, saw the Black Stars level on points (13) and goal difference (+4) with SA, but progress on the next level of criteria, goals scored in the group (Ghana had seven, SA six).

The SA Football Association (Safa) has said it will ask the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and world governing body Fifa to investigate the officiating of Senegalese referee Maguette Ndiaye and his assistants.

Daniel Amartey clearly dived when there was minimal contact from Rushine de Reuck for the penalty awarded by Ndiaye. Broos complained about the decisions throughout the match that allowed Ghana to make physical challenges, but not SA.

Broos, though, also called attention to SA’s hugely promising group qualifying campaign — winning four times, drawing once and losing once with a young team as the coach bravely omitted frontline stars building towards the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.

“It’s for sure I’m disappointed because we were very close,” he said. “If you see the decision came down to one goal then that’s the second disappointment we have.

“We did very good work in the last three months. When you asked before the qualifiers what SA would do, nobody would say we would be top of the group before the last game.

“So from that side, we did a very good job and there is a team again in SA.

“Again, I’m really not happy with the referee and the way he allowed Ghana to play in an aggressive way. I have nothing against that [refs allowing physical play], but it has to be for both sides, and that was not the case.”

If Broos’ priority in the qualifiers was to identify young talent, throw them into a tough pool of a difficult World Cup qualifying group and see how they could swim, then Bafana’s campaign was a success even before the game against Ghana in Cape Coast.

The 69-year-old Belgian, who won the 2017 Nations Cup with a young Cameroon with big-name stars left out, has a base of young talent who have gained already from the experience of tough World Cup qualifying matches in which they performed beyond expectations.

Kept together, with tweaks here and there, this group will gain more experience in the 2023 and 2025 Nations Cup qualifiers and hopefully also finals tournaments, and be ready for another challenge to reach a World Cup — preferably not just to make up the numbers there, in 2026.