Durban - Even though the results are not yet showing it, Hugo Broos is a breath of fresh air and one of the best things to happen in South African men’s football in recent years. The reason why I have emphasized the term “South African men’s football” is because the South African women’s football team has not stooped to the same lows as our men’s football has.
The fact that the women’s team qualified for the 2019 World Cup and are one of the best in Africa in spite of having to work with significantly less resources compared to our men’s football team means that they have been a success story.
South African men’s football has been on a downward spiral for the last 20-years. Several national team coaches, local and international have come and gone with none really bringing upon significant change to the fortunes of the national team. This surely suggests that the problems facing South African men’s football are not only tactical but deeply rooted in structural issues.
Broos recently caused some unease when he said among other things that, “It’s time now to face the real problem. And what is the real problem of South Africa? It is that we don’t have those high-quality players, like our last three opponents, Ghana, France and Morocco”.
Some critics feel that Broos is being too scathing regarding the quality of footballers in South Africa. However from a rational perspective, considering Bafana Bafana’s inability to qualify for World Cups and Africa Cup of Nations tournaments over the past ten years, it’s safe to say that the Belgian’s assessment is true and something that should have been taken into consideration far earlier.
Broos is also not being overly negative as some critics suggest as he did also say that South African men’s football has a lot of potential, something that we have known for a long time.
In the aftermath of the United States men’s national team failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, pundit Taylor Twellman went on an infamous rant implicating everyone from the administrators, coaches and yes even Journalists in being complicit in the failures of American soccer. Twellman suggested that the US would require a major rebuild such as the one carried out by Germany after their disastrous Euro 2000 campaign.
The reason that Twellman also implicated Journalists in the downfall of US Soccer was that he felt that they regularly celebrated players who, while good in an American context, were very average by world standards.
The US did embark on a major rebuild over the last four years which included a clear out of the federation under which they experienced failure. They are now ranked 15 in the World and have the potential to be a surprise package in the World Cup taking place in Qatar later this year.
The exact same analysis can be used towards South African men’s football. It’s about time that we assess the situation based upon logic rather than emotion.
@EshlinV