Bafana coach says friendlies will focus on sharpening skills for Afcon qualifiers

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos says he will use the two upcoming friendly internationals to sharpen his players for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers starting in June.

But Bafana Bafana will play the two matches without talisman, Percy Tau, who has been dropped from the team due to an injury.

South Africa will face Guinea in Belgium on Friday, before facing world champions France in two much anticipated friendly games.

Broos says despite experiencing a lot of challenges in the past few weeks, he’s looking forward to the two matches.

“It was not only injuries and there were problems with visas, it’s terrible. Every player had to go to the embassy himself so it was not easy the last two weeks because teams like Sundowns, Pirates and AmaZulu were playing in Africa somewhere. But I’m very happy now that those problems are solved and there will be some players who will come later so they will be there only on Wednesday in France but it’s okay, this is not really a problem. I’m happy that they will be there and that we can do what we expected to do in those two friendly games.”

Broos says following their failure to qualify for this year’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Bafana Bafana’s focus has now shifted to next year’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Ivory Coast.

“Absolutely and said it already when I came here, I couldn’t understand that a country like South Africa was not always in Afcon. You can’t ask for South Africa to win the Afcon always or to be always in the final. No, but I think South Africa has to be every time in the Afcon, so we will try to do it for Ivory Coast and when we don’t succeed, that will be a little disaster.”