Bafana’s wins can’t be taken as a sign of progress

Bafana Bafana’s recent wins over Sierra Leone and Botswana will be a relief. It was good to see the team return to winning ways and scoring goals again. However, with that being said, these wins must also not be taken as any sign of improvement by the national team.

If anything, they should be expected to routinely beat the 113th-ranked Sierra Leone and 146th-ranked Botswana.

With all due respect to South Africa’s southern African neighbours Botswana, a healthy Bafana team should have comprehensively outplayed them and beaten them by more than 1-0. Botswana are fairly low on the African football pyramid and neither are they a southern African powerhouse either.

Since taking over Bafana, coach Hugo Broos has been a breath of fresh air. Unlike other coaches who have come and gone and tried to sell fake progress, Broos has been blunt about the status of men’s football in SA. He has never hesitated to admit that it is at a low standard despite having tremendous potential, something that would have surely irked many administrators.

“I was not happy with the performance (against Botswana). It is clear that some players are not good enough or able to bring what you have to do at this level. The PSL is something, but international games are different. I chose two games to see what the players can do. I’m not happy with the game against Botswana, but we did win and that is the most important thing,” said Broos.

Broos is certainly right in that the PSL is a totally different ball game from international football. Many SA players are not short of talent, but at the end of the day that is not what totally wins you games at international football, a team also needs a strong structure and players who will execute the basics right, something that SA men’s football does not have.

The PSL’s developmental structures have failed to iron out players’ errors in the game and this has in turn translated into Bafana’s poor performances at international level for several years.

Bafana are due to play two friendlies in November, before they face Liberia in crucial back-to-back 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in March.

This article originally appeared on IOL

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