MC Alger head coach Rulani Mokwena says Hugo Broos has earned the right to be trusted in his national team selections and Thembinkosi Lorch must continue to work hard to convince the Bafana Bafana coach like Themba Zwane did.
Lorch, 32, is experiencing a great second season at Wydad Athletic Club, having scored five goals and set up four more across all competitions this season.
However, Broos recently stated that he doesn’t believe Lorch will be part of his squad for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations, because of his advanced age.
With Broos having a similar stance on Zwane before, Mokwena revealed the advice he gave the Mamelodi Sundowns star – and how the same example applies for Lorch, while hailing the outstanding work of Broos at Bafana level.
“I think in this moment, we’ve got a head coach in Hugo Broos, who is doing a very, very good job,” he said during a group interview with the South African Football Journalists Association on Wednesday.
“I think he’s done incredibly well for the country. He’s done incredible, incredibly well for the players. There’s a very strong sense of trust and a good rapport between him and the players. And that’s very, very important at this level. And I think we’ve just got to continue to go in the direction that he has chosen.
“It might not necessarily be a direction that I, for one, agree with, or maybe you agree with on many aspects, but I think with the success that he’s had, he has worked to deserve a little bit of credit to make certain executive decision that we might not all agree with.
“But I think in the success that he has had, I think he deserves to continue to lead us the way he has been leading us, and to receive all our support. I think it is the most important for me, is to continue to support the coach and continue to support the boys, because what they are doing as a country is incredible.
“And for Lorch, he just needs to have a look at Themba Zwane as a source of inspiration, because Themba was in the same position as that he is in at this moment in time, just a few months ago.
“And and I remember saying to to Mshishi ‘You’ve got to be so good – so so good that it’s difficult to ignore you’. And that’s exactly what Mshishi did.
“You know Themba Zwane was so good that even though the coach at that time felt that he didn’t want Themba Zwane for reasons that we had to respect, for sure, also because he mentioned them. And also, to the credit of Hugo Broos, he mentioned that that was one of the things that he felt he, in the earlier parts of his reign as a head coach, he had gotten wrong – and for a coach to say this publicly, you’ve got to also give a lot of credit to Hugo Broos for this.
“And so that means that if he could rescind his opinion about Themba Zwane, I think for sure he if Lorch continues the way he is doing – I hear very good things from Wydad, from the president, who I speak to quite regularly, about his conduct and about his professionalism, about his performance, about his character in the change room, if he continues like this for sure there are a lot of possibilities to be reinducted in the Bafana fold.”
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