Hugo Broos concerned about Bafana’s offensive play ahead of showdown with Ghana

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has pointed out that their offensive play was not up to the required standard in their goalless draw in a 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup qualifier against Zimbabwe in Harare on Friday.

Bafana dropped their first points of this qualification programme but they are sitting second behind Ghana who beat Ethiopia 1-0 in the other match of the Group G at the Cape Coast Stadium on Friday.

Reflecting on his first match as Bafana coach, Broos said he was satisfied by the overall performance and the mentality of the players but raised concerns about their offensive play.

“First of all I am happy with the mentality of the players, I thought the players showed strong mentality which was good for me,” he said.

“Defensively I think it was all right, we didn’t give too many chances to Zimbabwe because the defence was there and I am happy about that. But at the other side if the field you have to score goals to win games and we were not good offensively.

“We must work on that in the coming week and months because to win matches you have to score. This was for us a problem because at this level we have to be more dangerous.

“Sometimes we have to move more quickly to get to the other side of the field and give the opponent problems. These are some of the things that we have to work on and at the moment we have two days to work until the next match. It will not be OK immediately but we need some time to work on things that didn’t work properly for us.

“There were a lot of things that we worked on in the week in the build-up to the match and I am very happy that the players are listening and trying to do what we ask. But again [it] is the beginning of fighting and you can’t do everything and that’s why we have to continue working.”

Broos also explained his second-half changes that saw Luther Singh, Gift Links and Percy Tau replaced by Victor Letsoalo, Bongokuhle Hlongwane and Sipho Mbule respectively.

“Gift Links was not really in the game in the first half and that is the reason we changed him at half time and with Percy I think you can see that at the moment he is not in the best shape.

“It is something in the next week that he (Tau) must work on but he remains a good player and that’s the reason he stayed for longer in the game. I hope that in the next games in October and November we will have a better Percy. I thought Teboho Mokoena and Mothobi Mvala played very well and it was OK.”