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NKARENG MATSHE | Broos's moment to fulfil his bold promise has finally dawned

Nkareng Matshe Sports editor
Hugo Broos (coach) of Bafana Bafana during the South Africa national men's soccer team press conference at Anew Hotel on March 23, 2023 in Johannesburg.
Hugo Broos (coach) of Bafana Bafana during the South Africa national men's soccer team press conference at Anew Hotel on March 23, 2023 in Johannesburg.
Image: Sydney Seshibedi

Before he turned into a whiner who constantly bemoans the standard of SA football, Hugo Broos initially came across as a man who could live up to his promises.

One of those prominent promises was made in his first press conference after replacing Molefi Ntseki as national coach two years ago.

The country was at the time reeling from another national disaster, as Bafana failed to make it out of a group by finishing behind Ghana and Sudan and thus didn’t make to the continental finals in Cameroon, which took place in January last year.

Having arrived here at the height of Covid-19 in 2021, Broos spent his first few weeks in charge traversing between his home country Belgium and SA, leading to the joke he was "probably coaching Bafana via Zoom”.

But he’s settled in now and, after realising the task of reviving a national team stuck in the doldrums is bigger than he had anticipated, he started to speak frankly about the challenges facing him, lambasting all and sundry in what was a repetition of what his predecessors had said.

That, however, doesn’t mean we have forgotten his bold promise when he assumed office: “Don’t kill me if we don’t qualify for World Cup 2022 (in Qatar), but kill me if we don’t qualify for Afcon 2023 and World Cup 2026.”

Well, the moment has finally arrived. On Tuesday at around 8pm, Bafana’s ticket to the 2023 continental finals, which will be staged in Ivory Cost in January, should be confirmed. SA require just four points from their remaining three matches to book their place.

Bafana face Liberia today at Orlando Stadium and Tuesday in the away leg. 

The odds couldn’t have favoured Broos more in this qualifying round. Bafana are in a three-team group after Zimbabwe were booted out by Fifa, making the task less arduous. What’s more, Bafana are facing a Liberian side who have forgotten how to win, having lost four of their past five games. There surely can be no excuses for failure.

But this is Bafana we are talking about here – a team who can complicate straightforward matters and shoot themselves in the foot.

Even by their lowly standards and previous disappointments, we have to hope for the best. Broos has assembled a pretty decent squad, although his continuous selection of Nyiko Mobbie, however much he justifies it, remains highly curious.

Percy Tau has arrived in camp rich in form from Al Ahly, and there’s an expectation that he can link up well with the likes of Lyle Foster, boosted by a January move to Burnley in the English Championship, and the on-form Cassius Mailula of Mamelodi Sundowns.

The only challenge Bafana may have in today’s match is lack of home backing, with the match fixtured for an awkward 6pm kickoff and Safa having done pretty little to market the game (at the time of writing I had not seen even a poster telling us how much tickets cost). So, I expect only a few hundred fans at Orlando, which is a pity for a national side playing an official qualifier.

But again, there can’t be an excuse. Bafana simply have to win, not least against effectively their direct opponents for a spot behind already qualified group leaders Morocco.

So in a matter of four days, expectations are that Broos will have fulfilled his first part of bold promise and we would just be waiting for him to meet the more difficult one: that of becoming the first coach to qualify Bafana for a World Cup since 2002. That one, even the most optimistic South Africans will have doubts about.

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