The Bafana Bafana of South Africa will have a few new faces when they face Guinea and France later this month, according to head coach Hugo Broos
South Africa will play international friendlies against Guinea and France on March 25 and 29. Both fixtures will be in France. Broos, who joined Bafana in May last year, has already built a strong and reliable side full of players who are still in their early 20s.
The new Bafana earned a lot of plaudits for their decent run in the Fifa World Cup qualifiers, where it only took conceding a dubious penalty against Ghana for them to miss out on qualifying for the play-offs late last year. Even so, Broos feels there’s a need to blood a few new players to bolster the squad.
“I have always said that the World Cup qualifiers campaign was the beginning. It was very difficult for me to select players because I didn’t know them but they did very well. However, there must be new faces because we’re not strong enough,” Broos told Sowetan in a wide-ranging interview last week.
“If we were strong enough, we would have qualified for the play-offs. There are some weaknesses in the current group, therefore we have to look for other players. We are looking at the players in the league games and in the CAF competitions.’’
The Belgian wasn’t keen to name the players he’s going to call up for the first time but given their blistering form in recent months, players like Orlando Pirates utility full-back Bandile Shandu, Stellenbosch striker Ashley du Preez and Kaizer Chiefs midfield maestro Nkosingiphile Ngcobo deserve a nod. Golden Arrows goalkeeper Nkosingiphile Gumede has also done well this term.
Shandu, 27, is proving to be the most efficient right-back in the country right now, having scored six goals in as many games across all competitions this season. The 24-year-old Du Preez has five goals and three assists to his name this term.
Ngcobo, 22, may be struggling to command a regular berth at Chiefs but he has shown flashes of brilliance this season. In eight league appearances, Ngcobo still managed two goals and a single assist.
Should Ngcobo get a call-up, he won’t be the first player to be called-up under Broos while struggling to start games at club level, with his Chiefs teammate Njabulo Ngcobo having been in the same position before. Gumede, 28, boasts five clean sheets from 11 league games, conceding eight times this season.
