Broos ‘almost quit’ after thrashing by France
As he basked in the unexpected glory of Bafana Bafana’s thirdplace finish at Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), coach Hugo Broos revealed he nearly quit the national team in 2022.
When Bafana were trashed 5-0 by France in 2022, the criticism from the public pushed Broos to the brink of leaving the national team. Speaking in Abidjan as he reflected on Bafana’s surprise finish, Broos said he stayed on because he believed that SA can do better.
“I thought about it [quitting], because after the game against Morocco away I went home for five weeks and spoke to my former assistant coach in Belgium.
“We spoke about what we were going to do.
“There was something that said to me, ‘go now when everything is negative and there is nothing good’, but there was a voice that said, ‘go on’.
“The voice said ‘believe in what you believe in because it will happen’, and it happened, but I was close to quitting.”
Broos said he wanted to make a difference for SA football.
“I came to SA with something on my mind, but from the beginning I couldn’t understand why in a country like this there was something that was not normal with the results of the national team. This is a country that has to show better results than what they showed over the past 10 years. I was sure there was potential in SA, but I didn’t know much about SA football and I needed some time.
“But once you start and see it is possible, you come to SA to play Afcon and qualify for the World Cup, and we were close.
“We had to play another game in World Cup qualifiers, but all was possible and that gave [me] the energy to go on.
“But after France [5-0] and Morocco [2-1], I was thinking about quitting because the criticism was too much.
“What people said was too much, but I have always been a winner and I wanted to leave SA with something.
“Suddenly everything falls in the right place, you start winning, qualify for Afcon, the players start to believe. You win against Morocco in the last group game and then suddenly there is a belief that maybe we can do something.
“My relationship with the players is good, their relation with me is very good and this is the basic of good results.”