Broos is killing us
On Bafana’s upcoming friendlies
This week Bafana Bafana is playing two international friendly matches against Sierra Leone and Botswana and I want to talk about the selection of players and the coach Hugo Broos himself, more than anything. First of all, Themba Zwane from Mamelodi Sundowns has been called up for the first time under Broos and this selection is overdue – I’ve said that many times before. These coaches from overseas, I’m afraid they are going to break the spirit of our players. The coach is now picking the boy because of the pressure from the media, and that is not how things are supposed to be done. Zwane will go to these matches telling himself that he needs to prove himself because of that. We know that he is a good player, but I’m not really sure what kind of a coach is this one. I think this is a big boost to the squad though because we can see week in and week out that Zwane is someone who is working hard and scoring goals for his club, and that is what we need because we can see that he wants to be someone important in the national team and his call-up is long overdue. Zwane has been playing well long before Broos arrived in South Africa, but he has never selected him. I don’t know the reason for that, maybe it’s bad luck. If there is a criteria that he is using to select players, I don’t know what criteria he is using. I watched an interview where the coach was giving reasons why he selects players and he never gave a solid reason about why he was not picking Zwane. He was beating about the bush and I wish I was there at that press conference because I was going to question him. There was a time when he said South Africa didn’t have talent and we are still keeping him as our coach. You can’t come here and tell us we don’t have a team – that is disrespecting us. Let’s look at another player, Zakhele Lepasa from Orlando Pirates. He is a unique player. He is that kind of a player that will lift the team up when the chips are down. He is always running, whether he has the ball or not. I always watch all the players around the country and there are lots of them who are not getting selected. There are some players that the coach has selected and who have not been playing well for their respective clubs.
On Broos for Mzansi’s national team
Broos is killing us. Ever since he arrived in South Africa as the Bafana Bafana coach, he doesn’t have seven to eight players that can form the core of his team and represent us in most matches. Even now, look at the current players that he has selected, there are no players that can take us to the future. He is always making changes. Broos is one of those coaches, whenever he loses, he will tell you that he is building. If Broos was the coach of Chippa United, he would have been gone… I mean fired, long time ago. I’ve worked with many European coaches during my time as a player – those coaches want hard work, but when you make a single mistake, they think that you are disrespecting them. If you go up the field and lose the ball or get dispossessed, they will wait until a training session and tell you to your face that next time you make a mistake, you are gone. When Broos was the coach at Cameroon, Cameroon had players who were settled in their respective positions and the only thing a coach needed to do was to guide them. Those players were also much better quality, and you could have taken someone who had never coached before, they could have won. At Bafana Bafana, we have quality, but we need a coach that can pick them in a good system. The current players we have in the country have the ability to take us to where the country was before, but it’s all about selecting players on merit. Every time Broos picks a team, there are many changes. When you pick players for the national team, you need to have the core of the team that will stay there for a long time and whatever changes you make need to be made around them. You can’t pick a new team all the time. If you make wholesale changes in the team, are you telling me that you were testing those players or you didn’t believe in them? Broos used to select Victor Letsoalo as a striker and during those times, how many times did he use him? If you pick a player and then drop him without using him, that player has never had a chance to prove himself. Give a player a chance, even if it’s 15 or 20 minutes. These coaches are killing these boys’ spirit and next time we will hear that these boys are misbehaving and they are pitching up late for training camps. These players are young.
On getting Bafana to w here it w as before
But having said that, I think it’s possible to get the national team to where it was before and it won’t take that long if we can focus on one South African coach and give that coach time. When we hire European coaches, we give them all the necessary support and equipment to assess players, no matter where they play. If a coach says, ‘I want to go to this county to assess these players’, they give him the support to do that. These coaches come to South Africa with backroom staff who will help them assess players and with everything that they need. Our local coach also deserves the same support and assistant coaches. When we hire our own local coaches, we give them assistant coaches from SAFA, it’s not people that they necessarily selected. Let our coaches select their own backroom staff and assistant coaches so that we don’t run into problems. Our coaches must also be given a chance to pick coaches who share the same philosophy. When a coach leaves, assistant coaches must also leave. Once that happens, then we will see changes. Look at Benni McCarthy – wherever he went as a coach, he brought his own staff. Look at Pitso Mosimane, he did the same as well, he has his own people that he works with all the time. When that happens, you have a common goal. When all those things happen, our national team will get to where we want to be. If you can ask me about Hugo Broos, whether he should leave, then my answer is yes.
Bennett Mnguni, Former Bafana Bafana midfielder