BAFANA'S NEW HOPE

New coach Hugo Broos has injected magic into the mix and made our boys believe in themselves again

-  JANICE BECKETT-MSIZA

HE WAS hardly a household name or a particularly popular choice when he touched down in SA in 2021 to take the reins of beleaguered Bafana Bafana.

Here we go again, many fans said. Yet another guy getting big bucks for a job they’ll fail at. May as well give up now – Bafana are a lost cause.

But people are singing a different tune about Hugo Broos after South Africa’s gutsy performance at the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). A nailbiter of a semi­ final against Nigeria followed by the bronze medal, the Afcon golden glove award for heroic goalie Ronwen Wil­liams and the fair play award to the team for sportsmanship – the boys might not have gone all the way but they sure did us proud.

And no one could be more thrilled than the 71­year­old Belgium­born coach.

“We don’t need to have fear anymore,” he said after the semifinal, which SA lost on penalties. “If tomorrow we play against a big African country, we are good and we have to believe.

“This is something I always said to the players in the last months. Believe in yourself, please. You have the qualities but you have to change some things. And they did it. I’m so proud of those guys.”

The team’s performance in the Ivory Coast is a good thing for SA football, Broos added. “The interest is again there and I think that’s important.”

Afcon success has also dampened any lingering doubts about the coach. When he arrived in SA people said he was too old – shouldn’t he be retiring instead of taking on a troubled team? After all, he’d led Cameroon to Afcon victory in 2017 so why not go out on a high?