Bafana coach Broos applauds Safa’s national identity workshop

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has applauded the South African Football Association’s (Safa) three-day national identity workshop where coaches engaged on a range of issues to improve the national teams.

The workshop, organised by Safa’s new technical director Molefi Ntseki, brought together coaches and some staff members of Safa’s senior and junior national teams to discuss issues of alignment.

“It is good that our ‘TD’ [Ntseki] took the initiative to organise this workshop over the past three days,” said Broos, who is expected to announce the squad for pre-World Cup friendly matches against Panama in the coming days.

“It is for the first time in the five years I’m coaching here that I have met every member of the staff of every national team. We had the opportunity to speak about our programmes, about football and how we can solve our problems in the future.

“This is the best thing to do because there was a lack of communication in the past. This is the only way to move forward, become a better team, to know problems of other teams and share information among ourselves.”

Former Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs head coach Ntseki said among the issues discussed was the alignment of a national playing style.

“We identified a lot of similarities when it comes to the tactical approach from under-15s and all the way to Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana. We have discovered that we are doing a lot of things that are common.

“But the issue is that one didn’t know what was happening with other teams. Now that we know, we are saying, ‘let’s improve on the good things that we know we are good at.’

“We are a possession-based country and when you look at the U-15s and Bafana, they play the formation (1-4-2-3-1), which varies in terms of the approach and results that each coach is looking for.

“But understanding is important. With the background and understanding of other people having been with other national teams, it helps in terms of what we want to achieve.

“We also had media training because as coaches, sometimes you do a post-match after losing the game and you are emotional. Instead of talking about the game, you end up becoming personal with management or players.

“I think it was important to say, ‘How do you address the media?’ And also [your conduct] when you are not wearing national team colours.”

It is a big year for the men’s and women’s senior national teams.

Banyana, who are competing in the Cosafa Women’s Championship, will be out to regain the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title they won for the first time in 2022 but ceded to Nigeria last year in the 2026 Wafcon in Morocco in March and April.

Bafana, after disappointingly exiting in the last 16 of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), also in Morocco in December and January, compete in their first World Cup in Mexico, Canada and the US in June and July since hosting the global showpiece in 2010.

The junior teams had a relatively successful 2025. Coach Vela Khumalo’s U-17s reached the quarterfinals of their age group Afcon in Morocco to qualify for last year’s U-17 World Cup in Qatar, where they surprised by placing second in Group A to Italy, before bowing out 3-0 to Japan in the last 32.

Coach Raymond Mdaka’s Amajita won their maiden U-20 African Cup of Nations title, beating Morocco 1–0 in the final in Cairo in May. They performed well at the 2025 U-20 World Cup in Chile, losing 2-1 against France, thrashing New Caledonia 5-0 and beating the US 2-1 to end second in Group E, then losing 3-1 against Colombia in the last 16.

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