Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos said he knew they would qualify for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and has lauded the public’s turnaround in support.
When Broos arrived at the helm of South Africa to succeed Molefi Ntseki in the aftermath of failing to secure a point against Sudan for a place at the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, the nation’s morale and confidence in the national team was at an all-time low.
The start of his tenure was far from smooth sailing, with the controversial 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, where they fell short against Ghana, but in his 40 games overall, Bafana remains unbeaten at home.
Their only defeats coming away from home, against the Black Stars, France, Morocco, Rwanda and Mali with 21 wins, 14 draws and five defeats.
“You know I’m not stupid, I knew we would qualify [for AFCON],” he said.
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“I said [if we don’t qualify for 2026 World Cup I would leave too], but if you compare the team from two years ago and the team now, there’s a difference of day and night in everything.
“In quality, in power, in results, in whatever you say – there’s a big difference and we worked on it to make this team, it was not easy.
“Certainly in the beginning, nobody understood what I was doing, young players, no players from Chiefs, what is that? Nothing was good. Now we are where we are, and everyone is proud of Bafana Bafana at the moment.”
The results improvement is one thing, but as recent as October 2023, a friendly at FNB Stadium to prepare for AFCON 2023, where South Africa finished third, saw less than 500 tickets sold for their clash against eSwatini.
Since then, there’s been packed stadiums in Bloemfontein, Gqeberha and Cape Town, showing the desire of the rest of the country to support the national team, after Gauteng hosted more than 90% of fixtures over the past decade, and attendances were dire.
“You see the crowds have found their way back to the stadium and that makes me also very proud to see that, it’s nice for the players too. We played games in the Covid period and then in front of nobody,” he said.
“You have to play the important game in front of [no fans] this is terrible, everything has changed and we are very happy about that.”
