Bafana are worth watching for first time in ages

FINALLY, after several years of frustration, watching Bafana Bafana in action is actually worthwhile.

The football is actually coherent and with some structure, rather than disjointed and all over the place.

Bafana Bafana won their back-to-back fixtures in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers against Ethiopia during the most recent international break. Apart from during the Cosafa Cup, it’s been very rare that the men’s national team has performed so admirably since the early 2000s.

The best thing about watching Bafana Bafana during the recent games against Ethiopia was that individual greediness from players in terms of keeping possession and ballooned shots over the crossbar were not evident in the team’s play.

Ballooned shots into the stands have been a problem plaguing South African football since the retirement of Benni McCarthy, and led to concerns about the quality of strikers that the country churns out.

Coach Hugo Broos has so far taken bold decisions, which are paying off. The first was to phase out the “old guard” and players over 30 upon taking charge as coach.

Broos’ decision to phase out older players has led to the likes of Ethan Brooks and Bongokuhle Hlongwane establishing themselves as worthy international players, while goalkeeper and new captain Ronwen Williams has proven himself to be a leader and a commanding presence between the sticks.

Perhaps all we needed to give the players was a bit of backing?

After Williams’ slow start to international football, it would have been easy to write him off as a leader. It would have also been easy for Broos to ignore Hlongwane and instead call up more experienced attackers such as Bradley Grobler, Ruzaigh Gamildien or Kermit Erasmus, which most others that came before the Belgian would have done.

Instead, Hlongwane has since established himself as the national team’s latest star and has become a key component of the starting XI. The 21-year-old from Nxamalala in KwaZulu-Natal will almost certainly be leaving Maritzburg United for greener pastures in the near future.

Broos has also admitted that it is going to be difficult for the current men’s national team to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. This is a realistic and sober assessment. Coaches in the past have had unrealistic ambitions which almost always ended in disaster, as did their terms at the helm of the team.

Bafana may have recorded impressive victories over Ghana and Ethiopia recently but we must not be blinded to the fact that there still is a gulf in class between them and the best nations in Africa.

Given that Ethiopia and Zimbabwe have virtually been eliminated from qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, the next international break and final two games of Group G will be a shoot-out between Bafana and Ghana to determine who advances to the third round, where it’s probable that one of the giants of African football will lose out.

Broos still has his work cut out for him but at least we are seeing coherent displays and realism after several years of the opposite.