Most look at the wallet: Broos urges agents to resist taking SA talent to big leagues

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos is always at pains to explain the dynamics behind his reluctance to have young South African players thrown straight into the deep end at top European clubs.

Behind Broos's assertion is his assessment that South Africa's Premier Soccer League is still a level lower than the cream of Europe's leagues such as La Liga, the English Premier League (EPL), Italian Serie A and Germany's Bundesliga. This means expecting a precocious talent such as Orlando Pirates' Relebohile Mofokeng (20) to go straight to such an elite environment would be unrealistic as the immediate step up would be too high.

Broos revealed he advised Mofokeng at the end of last season to have another campaign with Pirates, play in the Caf Champions League and then start looking for a decent club in a destination such as Belgium, Portugal or France before thinking about playing in one of Europe's top leagues.

The coach made an example of Bafana striker Lyle Foster, saying when he left Pirates at the age of 17 in 2017 the biggest mistake was joining French giants Monaco, where the competition for places was too great for a teenager, leading to loans to lower division clubs in Portugal and Belgium.

Broos believes if Foster had gone straight to the club where he eventually started making his name, Belgium's KVC Westerlo, he would have moved to England much earlier than he eventually did in January 2023. Foster was signed by Burnley, who were campaigning for promotion to the Premier League and was part of their success in that mission, playing in the EPL campaign despite having a seven-week hiatus over mental health issues, before they were relegated again at the end of the 2023-24 season.

A good example of the point Broos is making about finding a bridging league at a level that is not too high or too low is Zimbabwe captain Marshall Munetsi. The 28-year-old left Pirates in July 2019 for French side Stade Reims, a club that competes mostly in the lower half of Ligue 1 where, unlike Monaco, game time is easier to achieve. After five-and-half strong seasons, Munetsi joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in the EPL on Monday.

“People will not be happy again when I say it, but there's a big difference between competitions in Europe and the PSL. Therefore, players don't have to immediately make the big step. OK, go to a decent team somewhere in Europe, like you saw with what happened to Foster.

“He didn't really succeed anywhere and then he came to Belgium with Westerlo in second division [when Foster joined the club was competing a tier down]. He went to the first division [when Westerlo were promoted in 2021] after six months and after that he went to Burnley.

“But the steps he made before that were not the right steps. But the guy [whoever was advising him], and this is many times the agent, has to be clever enough to make the right step. But most of them are looking at the wallet.”

Asked what he would advise Mofokeng to do after his first full season with Pirates, Broos said he's in no doubt that the player, who had trials with Wolves last season, is now ready to go to Europe, but not in one of the top-tier leagues.

“I see things around Mofokeng — there's Barcelona, Rangers, but I'm a little afraid. I just hope the people around him choose the best sporting solution and not the best financial solution.”

Broos's focus in 2025 is twofold: that Bafana qualify for the 2026 Fifa World Cup by the time the Caf group qualification is finished at the end of October; second, to make sure his team has a good run in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Morocco in December and January. Bafana are pitted against Egypt, Zimbabwe and Angola in group B.

“The hunger and ambition of all the players is very big. They want to show themselves at international level. You saw that in the last Afcon [where Bafana finished third in Ivory Coast last year] — the performance was there because they wanted to show how good they were.

“It's still there, this is the atmosphere in the national team. We always want to win the next game; we want to go to Afcon, and we want to go to the World Cup. I really don't have to do so much for that, I just have to watch and open my eyes and be alert if there's something that should be corrected. But for the rest everyone knows how we work.

You never achieve enough as a coach. There's always something you want to win. I have 36 years of experience as a coach and I can say I have nearly won everything, but I just stay ambitious. But first of all, I want to be at the World Cup — I want to be there because I know what it is. I was there as a player [with Belgium in Mexico in 1986] — it's the highest you can achieve as a player and as a coach you want to do that. 

—  Hugo Broos

“Everyone works towards the same direction and that makes us so strong for the moment. I think everybody knows his job and if they do it professionally then you can achieve results. That's what South Africa is now. We're a team of 35 people and we have the ambition to win every game and for that we have to work hard. Everyone works hard and that is the mentality I installed during the past years.”

Broos is happy to have senior players including captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams, Nkosinathi Sibisi, Percy Tau and others who help the young and new players in the squad to adapt quickly to what the coach wants.  

“Those new players have respect for people like Ronwen and Sibisi. These are the guys who are no different to the others, but the respect for those players in the team is big. There's now no-one doing something different to the others because they know it won't be accepted.” 

Broos said grooming young players for the future is important but has urged supporters not to expect him to play them when they're not ready.

“It's very difficult for a new young player with no international experience even when he has lots of talent to be thrown into the team. He needs to know the guys, like for example Mofokeng knows Sibisi and [Patrick] Maswanganyi because he plays every week with them [at Pirates].

“But for him to know players of Mamelodi Sundowns or those who play abroad, OK he does but is not used to playing with them. You have to learn little by little that in training and we try, because it's not so easy, to see the right moment to put them in.

“We did that with [Elias] Mokwana and [Oswin] Appollis and it immediately worked. But this is about the experience to say, 'not now, we wait and wait and maybe next game'. Choosing the right time to put them in is vital because sometimes you can put the players in too soon and then they don't perform, and then you say perhaps they don't have so much talent. You know that Bafana is a level higher than playing every week here in South Africa [in the PSL].”

Broos admitted he's on the last leg of his illustrious coaching career that has spanned more than 35 years and won him league titles in Belgium and the Afcon with a young Cameroon in 2017. The Belgian's mind is on taking Bafana to the World Cup next year, then to bow out at the age of 74.

“You never achieve enough as a coach. There's always something you want to win. I have 36 years of experience as a coach and I can say I have nearly won everything, but I just stay ambitious. But first of all, I want to be at the World Cup — I want to be there because I know what it is. I was there as a player [with Belgium in Mexico in 1986] — it's the highest you can achieve as a player and as a coach you want to do that.

“And also, at Afcon, I don't want to come home after the group stages. I will not be happy, and I will be very disappointed if it happens [that we bow out before the knockouts]. For us it's important to have a good Afcon again, but don't put pressure on us to make the semifinals and finals. There's more than quality that decides that.

“But I'm not thinking about Afcon now. I was thinking about it at the beginning of the week because of the draw, but now Afcon for me is far away. Everything from the first game in March to the last one in October is focused on the World Cup qualification.

“In-between for sure, because we'll have the opportunity to watch the games of Angola, Zimbabwe and Egypt, to be informed, but the real analysis of those teams will be later in the year. For now, it's the World Cup and not Afcon.”