Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos put his head on the block when he said South Africans can “kill him” if the team fails to qualify for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) tournament in the Ivory Coast next year.
Bafana missed out on the 2022 Afcon in Cameroon and the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar – and South Africans are still seething. This is not acceptable by SA standards and Broos, who has been in the country for almost three years, now knows the story and repercussions.
On Thursday, Broos named a rather competitive squad that will face Liberia in back-to-back matches for the Afcon qualifiers. On paper, the squad is
expected to steamroll all over Liberia, who are the whipping boys in the group.
What was encouraging is that Broos seems very confident of victory and qualifying for the tournament. He knows that anything other than victory will result in him packing his bags. Qualifying will give him a stay of execution and another shot at the 2026 Fifa World Cup.
South Africans just need those two victories against Liberia to book their tickets to the Ivory Coast. But we have seen some outlandish results when it comes to Bafana – like in 2018 when South Africa’s bid to reach the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations suffered a blow after they were held to a 0-0 draw by minnows Seychelles. This was after SA had walloped the same Seychelles, whose team is made of fishermen and carpenters, 6-0 in the first leg a few days earlier. Under the tutelage of Stuart Baxter, SA scraped through and qualified.
SA also failed to secure a spot in the 2018 Fifa World Cup. They had such a bad outing in the group stages of Afcon and qualified among the third-best finishers. But they managed the biggest upset of the tournament when they knocked Egypt out in Cairo through Thembinkosi Lorch’s goal. Baxter resigned after that Afcon tournament.
Molefi Ntseki took over and failed to book a spot in the 2022 Afcon tournament in Cameroon. After an impressive qualifying campaign, an unexpected loss at the hands of Sudan in Khartoum in the final match resulted in him getting dismissed.
With South Africans up in arms, Broos was recruited, and his assignment was mission impossible to qualify Bafana for the 2022 Fifa World Cup. The campaign was mind-boggling and Broos’ lads were knocked out at the last hurdle in controversial fashion by the Black Stars in the Cape Coast, Ghana.
His young team had showed promise and bravado and he was forgiven… briefly. This until Bafana rolled like lambs to the slaughter in a 5-0 clobbering by France last year.
His utterance that Bafana players were not good enough was not well received by South Africans. Broos later apologised and got the team back to winning ways.
The 2022 World Cup Cinderella dream starts and the friendly matches are a thing of the past. Football lovers will not kill him literally, but they will definitely kill Broos’ relationship with SA football if he does not get the six points against the hapless
Liberians.
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