It’s too late for Broos and Bafana to improve World Cup prospects, says Dlangalala

Bafana Bafana’s exit from the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Morocco has raised a lot of questions about what coach Hugo Broos should do to prepare the team better for the 2026 Fifa World Cup in North America in six months’ time.

South Africa’s lack of top players playing in big European leagues and poor preparation, which included playing against some of the lowest-ranked sides, have been raised as the main factors that contributed to the team, which won a bronze in the Afcon in Ivory Coast in 2024, performing poorly in Morocco where they were knocked out by Cameroon in the round of 16.

Zipho Dlangalala, one of South Africa’s top football analysts and coaches, maintains that people should not be surprised about how Bafana played in Morocco, because of a lack of appetite to allow Broos to build a team with young players since his appointment in 2021.

“Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place, that is us. Either way we’re doomed,” said Dlangalala of what awaits Bafana at the global showpiece where it has been 16 years since they last appeared as hosts in 2010.

While some insist that there was less enthusiasm in the team about Morocco, which was not helped by Broos’s criticism of the hosts, Dlangalala said it was always going to be like this given what we’ve been doing since the coach’s appointment.

“Nothing went wrong in Morocco. Last time (2024) we ‘piggybacked’ on the club (Mamelodi Sundowns) combination. Worse, all our opponents were still rebuilding their selected teams, starting a new four-year cycle after the 2022 World Cup.

“We always were a few steps ahead of all of them,” he said of Bafana’s surprise bronze in Ivory Coast in 2024.

But how does Broos lift his troops for the World Cup where their Group A opponents include hosts Mexico, South Korea and another European team, which is likely to be Denmark?

“We’re late on all fronts,” he said of Bafana’s prospects in an expanded World Cup of 48 teams that guarantees Africa at least nine places.

“We can try to do something, but we’ll finish at the bottom of our group. We’ll be lucky to get a point.”

The reason Dlangalala does not expect Bafana to do better than they did in the 1998, 2002 and 2010 World Cup tournaments where they were knocked out in the first round is because of missed opportunities in the last four years.

“Whether or not Broos makes changes, it will make no difference. We’re not ready, period. We lost the opportunity in 2021-22 when we should have allowed him to build a team for 2026.

“We refused him with a strong media backing and we’re now paying the price.”

Some analysts, including former Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane, have urged Broos to organise friendlies against tougher sides, something Dlangalala maintained we have avoided doing.

“No opponents can assist us now. We avoided those (big guns) for three years. Playing strong opponents now will be damaging and equally playing weak ones won’t help.”

Dlangalala pointed to Bafana’s record of over 20 games without defeat going into Afcon in Morocco, saying it was misleading.

“We played 20, won 10 and drew 10, but we had only one win against a team above us in the rankings, which was against Morocco at the 2023 Afcon.

Dlangalala also pointed to the caps the current Bafana squad has, arguing they are nowhere near top sides such as Argentina where Lionel Messi and Rodrigo De Paul have 284 caps, while South Africa’s 11 regulars at Afcon 2025 made 254 caps combined.

“Those caps by Messi and De Paul were not accumulated against Rwanda or Zimbabwe, but mostly against top 30 teams in the world.”