Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has shed light on the strict rules and the ‘DNA’ needed to be a national team player – which he’s now addressed and dropped players about.
In the past, Broos has shown a zero-tolerance approach for discipline in camp with the likes of Jayden Adams and Mbekezeli Mbokazi being publicly called out by the Belgian after missing the start of national team camp.
He was clear after naming the 23-man squad to face Panama about having the right mentality and attitude to represent the country and having a specific DNA to succeed, which he was asked to explain after naming the squad on Thursday at SABC Studios.
“It’s very clear, it’s the quality, if you don’t have quality, you can’t be Bafana Bafana, and the performances are showing your quality every week, in the PSL or club you are playing for, secondly even more important than quality, is the mentality,” Broos said in the media interviews after the squad announcement.
“When you don’t have the right mentality, it’s very difficult and it can ruin the atmosphere in the group, third is the discipline – when there’s no discipline… that’s sometimes details, if you can’t have the discipline to come on time for meals, you will not have the discipline to follow tactical instructions on the field, it’s like that.
“Then there’s your attitude as a professional player – we spoke about Jayden, Mbokazi, we don’t need to return on that, but that was not the right attitude and they have learnt from that, you need to be tough sometimes and make them understand it’s not the right way. Jayden comes back now…
“So when you don’t have all this together, you’re not ready to be with Bafana Bafana and that happened – it’s one of the reasons, the main reason, it happened in AFCON in Morocco, and why we didn’t perform on the pitch, because of the pitch it was not right either.”
When probed about what changed or transpired at AFCON, Broos stated he’s hopeful that the players who he left out, have introspection about the decision and work hard to return.
“This is something between Helman and me, we made an evaluation of AFCON, three or four days after coming back and we saw things that couldn’t happen anymore and things we knew we couldn’t change immediately, so we dropped them,” Broos said.
“And we took other players and I hope the guys who are not there now are putting themselves in front of a mirror and asking themselves why am I no longer with the national team.”
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