SAZI HADEBE | With such a slow start to the season, poor Broos has not much to draw from

What a start it’s been this 2023-24 campaign.

We’ve seen a tremendous and flawless start by reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns with five wins on the trot in all competitions, while their expected challengers are blowing hot and cold. At the opposite end of the league table, the usual strugglers are outcompeting themselves, making ours the most disjointed and unpredictable of leagues. 

It’s been a mixed bag, one that has also confused national team coach Hugo Broos, who’s made some interesting selections in the preliminary Bafana Bafana squad he announced this week.

Our Premier Soccer League is not like the English Premier League, whereyou see far fewer games with no goals or draws. The first round of the Premier League started with all 10 matches producing goals, with seven of them having outright winners.

In the second week, which had nine matches, all the matches had winners. Not a single draw. Isn’t that what we’re dreaming of seeing one day in our PSL?

In the PSL there are a lot of teams, maybe 10 out of 16, at the same average level, and when those teams clash, it’s not very pleasing to the eye. I’ve said many times that watching paint dry would be better than watching some of these teams. 

It’s good that we still have Kaizer Chiefs, even if they’re battling these days. Amakhosi’s mere existence creates a vibe. Whether Chiefs win, draw or lose, you know people are going to have an opinion about them. How we wish Chiefs football matched the huge following they command. It would be a genuine buzz.

Think of matches we’ve already witnessed between AmaZulu FC vs Richards Bay, Chippa United vs TS Galaxy, AmaZulu vs SuperSport United, Royal AM vs AmaZulu, Chiefs vs Chippa — all ending in goalless draws, and all played within the first three opening rounds of the season. They were awful to watch.

Some of these matches have been torturous, with players from both sides lacking ambition, good coaching and quality. There’s nothing wrong with a goalless draw if both sides have tried their best to score. In the PSL, some teams seem happy to get a draw, no matter whether they play home or away. 

So indifferent has been the start from some teams and players in the PSL, that even Bafana coach Broos has been left mesmerised and picked some players we would never have imagined in a Bafana shirt. 

So far, AmaZulu, who visit the beleaguered Chiefs in Johannesburg on Saturday, have been involved in three of five of these draws — the KwaZulu-Natal side boast a start of three matches where they’ve neither won, scored, conceded a goal or been defeated.

In some serious leagues a coach that produces a poor start such as AmaZulu’s would have been shown the door because of the fear that once you’ve stopped producing these draws, the next thing is defeat after defeat. Let’s hope Pablo Franco Martin at Usuthu delivers better outcomes soon because, if not, the Spaniard may end up being the first coaching casualty in the PSL this season. We know how trigger-happy Martin’s boss, Sandile Zungu, is. 

So indifferent has been the start from some teams and players in the PSL, that even Bafana coach Broos has been left mesmerised and picked some players we would never have imagined in a Bafana shirt. 

Sipho Chaine, Thabiso Monyane, Keegan Allan, Ime Okon, Zuko Mdunyelwa, Grant Magerman, Mlungisi Mbunjana are some of the new names in Broos’s preliminary squad, no doubt based on what they’ve done in the first few rounds of the new season. 

Whether some of these players will make the cut for the squad to face Namibia and DR Congo in friendlies next month depends on how they maintain their form in their next couple of games.

That Broos has relented and chosen overseas-based striker Lebo Mothiba and attacking midfielder Kobamelo Kodisang, means he’s been listening to the questions we’ve been posing whenever he’s named a Bafana squad. 

Some of us have asked Broos to give reasons why Mothiba, a striker we depended on so much when we last played in the Afcon in 2019, has been ignored. Yes, Mothiba’s career has been blighted by injuries and lack of game time since that Afcon, but still there have been one or two occasions where he could have been called up.

That Broos has chosen to give Mothiba a chance to show what he can do a few months before the 2023 Afcon in Ivory Coast bodes well for the player and Bafana.

Kodisang is a former Under-23 player I’ve always felt should, alongside Teboho Mokoena, now a regular at Bafana, long been included in the Bafana set-up. He’s a dynamic midfielder who can double up as a winger and playmaker. 

One player who is yet to catch Broos’s eye is Neo Maema of Mamelodi Sundowns. The Sundowns midfielder would have deserved to show Broos what he can do in the upcoming friendlies.

I guess Maema is not as lucky as Nyiko Mobbie, the Sekhukhune United right-back who has been a constant feature in Broos’s squad despite many people feeling he’s not the best we have in his position.   

But given the lukewarm tempo many PSL clubs have started the season with, we should excuse Broos for some of his selections. There’s no doubt he is as bamboozled as many of us are.