Broos to play full strength Bafana against Algeria

Hugo Broos did his experimenting against Andorra and will play an effective full strength line-up in Bafana Bafana’s second friendly of the month against hosts Algeria in Algiers on Tuesday night, he said.

Broos said 28-year-old Stellenbosch FC striker Iqraam Rayners will start and get a chance to prove himself upfront after Khanyisa Mayo made little impression in Thursday’s 1-1 draw against 164th-ranked Andorra in Annaba.

The Bafana coach, though, is hoping Burnley striker Lyle Foster’s absence over mental health issues and the injury to Evidence Makgopa, who impressed in Foster’s absence as SA won bronze at the Africa Cup of Nations in February, will both be resolved by the time his team play World Cup qualifiers in June.

Broos, after the late arrival of the seven Mamelodi Sundowns players — due to a 2-0 Nedbank Cup win against Maritzburg United they played on Sunday — fielded most of his experimental introductions he has taken to play in the Fifa Series matches in Algeria.

He said against 43rd-ranked Algeria, who beat 86th-ranked Bolivia 3-2 on Friday at the 40,000-seat Stade Nelson Mandela, where they also meet Bafana, the time for experimenting will be over.

Broos had bemoaned lacking a striker who could bury the chances Bafana created against Andorra.

“This has been a problem for several years in SA football, that we don’t really have the big scorer, even when there are guys who score rather easily in the local competition.

“You see [Khanyisa] Mayo with eight goals, [Iqraam] Rayners also has something like that so we’ll see about Iqraam on Tuesday. He will play.

“Everybody has to know that those international games are one or two levels higher than PSL games and it’s not so easy to score.

“On the other hand we have to recognise that there are three strikers not there — Evidence Makgopa, Lebo Mothiba and Lyle Foster.

“So there are some things to wait for. And I hope they will — though maybe not Mothiba — be ready in June because those games are more important.

“And we proved already at Afcon that we can score. But last Thursday we had too many chances and did not score from enough of them.”

Broos said he will field most of his front-line players against Algeria, a team beginning a new era under 60-year-old Bosnian-born Swiss coach Vladimir Petković after Djamel Belmadi, who won the 2019 Nations Cup, stepped down after the Fennec Foxes’ shock group stage exit in Ivory Coast.

“There will be a lot of changes,” the Bafana coach said.

“I have looked at both games and I think Thursday’s game was the best opportunity to give those young guys a chance — it was not such a difficult opponent even though the game was difficult.

“But if you compare Andorra with Algeria, there is a lot of difference in quality so we need to put our best team on Tuesday and cannot afford to do experiments again.”