Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has expressed his annoyance at the world governing body FIFA for not allowing his team to travel to their next destination at the FIFA World Cup four days before their clash with Canada.
Broos’ comments come on the back of Bafana’s historic qualification for the knockout phase of the tournament at the expense of South Korea, who they defeated 1-0 in the final group A match in Monterrey on Thursday.
Bafana’s Round of 32 match is against co-hosts Canada on Sunday 28 June in Los Angeles. The coach said he wanted the team to travel to America as soon as the day after the last pool game, but their request was denied by FIFA.
“You know, once you are there you want more,” said Broos at the post match press conference.
“So we want more, if we will achieve [it] that’s another thing. So we will start tomorrow [Thursday] by analyzing our opponent of next Sunday.
“It’s a little bit pity that we have to travel tomorrow [Thursday] first to Pachuca, and then the day after to Los Angeles.
“So we wanted to go [to LA] already tomorrow [Thursday], but FIFA didn’t allow it. So yeah, that’s a little, how can you say it, it’s a little bit annoying.
“I rather wanted to travel already tomorrow [Thursday] to the location where we are playing, but it’s not that.”
‘How we’ll prepare for Canada’
The Belgian mentor added that they will focus on the recovery of the players as they still have two trips to make.
“So we will have to recuperate very good in the next days. Trainings are not so important. Recovery is the most important and then we will see on Sunday,” he added.
“Again, you will see a team that will believe in themselves, a team that will fight for the 90 minutes and even more if we have to.
“And then we will see, let’s hope we can have a good result, if it’s not, it’s not. Again, I think what we did now already is a little bit better.”