Hugo Broos bullish about Bafana’s Afcon chances

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos believes his building blocks of the past two years have fallen into place and leaves no possibility that his team will fail to qualify for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon).

Broos has reason for such optimism, not least that due to Fifa’s expulsion of Zimbabwe 67th-ranked SA’s progression to Ivory Coast 2023 from Group K rests on two matches against 150th-ranked Liberia in which four points will clinch the deal.

With that in mind, moving qualification for the tournament from mid-2022 to January and February next year over heat concerns would also ring a little hollow. It is unlikely to earn Broos any great confidence from the public that woefully underachieving Bafana are progressing notably. More is needed.

Broos has emphasised youth and rebuilding, though backtracked on a few initial older omissions from the team whose hunger and fearlessness saw them run Ghana close in the 2022 World Cup group stages, bowing out on the same points and goal difference but just fewer goals scored.

Notably Mamelodi Sundowns’ peerless creative influence Themba Zwane was brought back. With a front line that also boasts in-form, promising attackers Lyle Foster and Monnapule Saleng, Downs’ find of the 2022-23 season, Cassius Mailula, and a Percy Tau regaining his stride at Al Ahly, Bafana should see off Liberia.

Given this is Bafana, who have tended to poor capitulations in qualifiers to particularly low-ranked teams in the past, including Seychelles and Cape Verde in recent years, that is also not a certainty.

Coming together

Even Broos must know that getting past Liberia to a Nations Cup will constitute no form of arrival. Expecting his young team to go to Ivory Coast and win a Nations Cup — like he did with a young Cameroon in 2017 — would also be unrealistic. The Indomitable Lions have far more international pedigree, and a better talent production line, than SA.

Broos believes he has seen signs of a team coming together. Friendlies should never be taken as any reliable indicator of form before competitive matches. But as the coach believes last year’s matches in September and November, for which he cast the net wider for players and found more pieces to his puzzle, showed SA will at least do the minimum of dispatching Liberia, his emerging combination can gain hugely needed experience at a big tournament.

“We were very convincing against Sierra Leone. We had two tough games against Angola and Mozambique. We came back from a goal down and won 2-1 against Mozambique playing good football.”

Another positive development Broos senses is that he is getting better co-operation from Premier Soccer League coaches. The 70-year-old Belgian rightly continues to harbour serious concerns over the standard of domestic football.

The coach is pleased that much of the noise he encountered after often complaining about failed attempts to meet PSL coaches and teams, and of a lack of co-operation from clubs, has died down.

“I can install a lot more organisation [around Bafana] that I wanted. I didn’t find that in the beginning. The organisation was not good, there were no procedures. And now I see that I have a response from clubs when the players are injured.

“Now, like with [Sundowns midfielder Sphelele] Mkhulise, I think three hours after I announced the 35 players [in the preliminary squad] I had the medical report to say the player was injured. This is certainly how it has to work.”

Bafana meet Liberia at Orlando Stadium on Friday (6pm) and in Monrovia next week Tuesday.