Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos says there is no need to keep talking to players about aiming to win the Africa Cup of Nations tournament as they already know that and would want it more.
Bafana are heading into this year’s edition of the continental spectacle as one of the most in-form teams in Africa unbeaten in 25 matches in all competitions including the AFCON qualifiers and FIFA World Cup qualifiers in the last two years. They were bronze medallists at the last AFCON in Ivory Coast something most people did not expect, and the coach has maintained that everyone has watched Bafana’s progress since that tournament and now rate them differently.
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Broos adds that he knows that South Africans want the team to do better and actually lift the trophy they only won in 1996. However, he will not be adding pressure by constantly reminding the players of what is at stake.
“Oh pressure, you know you make the pressure yourself a little bit,” said Broos.
“I know that everyone and we know all that everyone expects. The only thing I heard the last three, four weeks, when I met someone outside or in the group when I do my groceries ‘hey coach, we win AFCON, hey coach, bring us the cup’. Everyone is expecting that, but you don’t have to come back every time with your players and say, ‘hey guys we have to be in the semi-finals’.
“Then you yourself put pressure on the team. They know it and also, they want to win AFCON. Don’t think they don’t want to win AFCON. So, I don’t have to put pressure there or I don’t have to repeat to them every two, three days ‘hey guys, come on we have to win it’. We don’t have to do that, and it should be a very bad thing to do it because then as a coach, you put the pressure on your team.”
“The only thing I have to tell them is to prepare them of what will come and what will come is what I told already from the beginning; the status of South Africa is different than two years ago. Two years ago, we were one of the teams. Now we are one of the best teams in AFCON.
“So, our opponents will not make the same mistake I think Morocco did in the previous one. They told South Africa, we beat them 2-1 for the qualification and here we beat them. But okay everything was decided; I think they were a little bit too relaxed against us. It will not happen again now, and we have to be aware of that.”
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