Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos will end 2023 a frustrated and angry man as the Premier Soccer League (PSL) will not accede to his request to have the first half of the 2023-24 campaign wrapped up before the end of December.
The Bafana coach wanted the PSL to halt their fixtures on December 23 to give players, mainly from continental campaigners Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates, some rest ahead of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals in Ivory Coast from January 13 to February 11.
Pirates and Sundowns usually have many players in Bafana Bafana squad. Broos has a combined 10 players from those clubs (six from Sundowns, four from Pirates) in his roster for the 2026 Fifa World Cup opening qualifiers against Benin at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday and away against Rwanda on Tuesday.
“I’m sad, frustrated and angry because it was possible to stop the competition [DStv Premiership fixtures] on December 23,” Broos said. “I wanted to give players of Sundowns and Pirates and others seven days off, which was necessary after the first half of the season. But OK, [the PSL] decided not to do it. I must live with it, but I would have been happier if they followed my request.”
Attempts to get the PSL’s comment were not successful this week.
Broos is not the only one worried about the number of matches players have had to play in the first half of the season.
After his team’s 1-0 victory over Kaizer Chiefs in the Soweto derby on Saturday, Pirates coach Jose Riveiro was praising his conditioning assistants for keeping his players in good shape despite the Buccaneers playing seven games in 22 days before the start of the latest Fifa break.
“The conditioning of the team is crazy,” Riveiro said of how taxing it’s been for him and his technical team to keep his players fresh and fit for matches this season.
“I just congratulate everyone around our physios and fitness coaches because the fact that we didn’t get good results [two defeats and two draws before winning the last two in the league] this period is not related to our conditioning.
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Riveiro welcomed the latest Fifa break. Pirates play four more Premiership matches this year, with the last on December 29 against Stellenbosch FC.
“We had to play seven matches in 22 days. So rest is good. Don’t think of rest as meaning sitting on a sofa and relaxing. Rest mentally and think about something else that is not football.
“A time where players don’t listen to the coach for a few days. Just try to do something else. Then they can come back with energy and the desire to play football again because we didn’t stop. We had one day off in 22 days. Think about it.
Sundowns play a staggering six league matches and four Caf Champions League group matches before the end of the year.
The Brazilians are victims of their own success on the continent and domestically. The newly crowned, inaugural winners of the African Football League will be playing a match every two days before they finish their programme this year with a league fixture against Polokwane City on December 30.
Broos will have Bafana players in camp from January 4 and his team play their first Nations Cup match on January 16 against Mali before meeting Namibia on January 21 and Tunisia on January 24.
Bafana last played in Afcon finals in 2019 in Egypt where Stuart Baxter’s men were eliminated by Nigeria in the quarterfinals.
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