THE NEW (OLD) BAFANA

Coach Hugo Broos has been forced into a U-turn after his initial plans for Bafana Bafana turned out to be folly

- Mark Gleeson

South Africa coach Hugo Broos was barely in the job when he made a statement that has come back to haunt him... and his team.

The veteran Belgian coach, now 70, told his employers, and the public, he wanted to rebuild the national side after South Africa had failed to qualify for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations finals, a disappointment that cost predecessor Molefi Ntseki his job.

Broos, who was not the first choice for the Bafana job, but had won the Cup of Nations title with Cameroon in 2017, had watched videos of the poor performances against Ghana and Sudan and concluded there was a lack of fight in the South Africa camp.

Continuing with the same players would not serve his cause and he prefers, anyway, to work with younger players and, given he had signed a five-year contract, had plenty of time to build.

It was a pronouncement that met with almost universal applause. Pushing the agenda of youth in football is an obsessive topic in South African football, although the reality is that it is but a fantasy and a long distance from reality.

South Africa were about to embark on their World Cup qualifying campaign and turning to players aged 25 and under to try and qualify for Qatar did not strike any of the South African Football Association as something of a suicide mission. They might have told him to hold off on the revamp and use more experienced players to give Bafana Bafana a better shot.

But Broos was allowed to leave players such as Themba Zwane and Bradley Grobler out of the squad, and it came as no surprise when the national team failed to get past the group stage, the controversy of a penalty in their last game in Ghana providing some cover for Broos as SAFA made a comically unrealistic bid to try and reverse the result by claiming the referee cheated.