Both teams have already qualified for next year’s tournament in the Ivory Coast, and even with nothing on the line, coach Hugo Broos wants his players to treat it like a high-pressure encounter.
South Africa’s Belgian head coach Hugo Broos gives a press conference on the eve of the friendly football match between France and South Africa at the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium in Villeneuve d’Ascq, near Lille, northern France, on 28 March 2022. Picture: AFP
JOHANNESBURG – Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos will be using this weekend’s AFCON qualifier against Morocco as a tool to measure his team’s progress.
Both teams have already qualified for next year’s tournament in the Ivory Coast, and even with nothing on the line, Broos wants his players to treat it like a high-pressure encounter.
“Testing ourselves against those [Moroccan] players is very important for our team. If we lose that game, then okay, we lose. But I think for us it will be a good game to learn a lot again; and to know what we have to do and what we have to improve to have a good Afcon. If we should win, don’t think we’re world [class] team. This is not true either,” Broos said.
The Belgian has shown the Moroccans a lot of respect ahead of the game.
He has on more than one occasion said that they’re the better team with better players in each position. Broos attributed the team’s feat of making it to the World Cup semifinals in Qatar to their competence.
Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams agreed with his coach’s thoughts on Morocco. He added, however, that South Africa had made significant strides under Broos’ management.
“You can see there’s something good growing amongst us. In the last few years, we‘ve only lost three games in the last two or three years and people don’t speak much about it. But we’ve done extremely good work and people need to appreciate it,” Williams said.
He noted that the whole team bought into coach Broos’ vision, and they fully trusted the process as they had seen witnessed their improvement as a team.
Bafana Bafana are currently based at the University of Pretoria’s High-Performance Centre where they are preparing for their final Afcon qualifier.
Kick off against Morocco on Saturday at the FNB Stadium will be at 17:00.
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