News24 | Bafana’s World Cup shambles: Poor preparation, tactics leave SA on the ropes

The symptom of Bafana Bafana’s 2-0 loss to Mexico on Thursday is the individual mistakes that the team made, however, the cause lies in how the team prepared for this World Cup, writes Njabulo Ngidi.

The symptom of Bafana Bafana’s 2-0 loss to Mexico here on Thursday afternoon (Mexican time) is the individual mistakes that the players committed, along with coach Hugo Broos’ tactical shortcomings.

However, the cause of this loss is the team’s poor preparation for their first appearance in the FIFA World Cup in 16 years.

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Themba Zwane, the oldest player in the 26-man squad in Mexico, was 20 the last time Bafana played in the global showpiece.

At the time, Zwane was a promising talent at Mpumalanga Black Aces. Ronwen Williams was only 18 years old.

The rest of the players were still in school, with the likes of Ime Okon, Mbekezeli Mbokazi, Oswin Appollis and Relebohile Mofokeng at primary school.

So, when this generation booked their place in the Americas for the expanded World Cup on 14 October last year, a lot had to be done to bridge the gap between them and the best teams in the world.

This was vital to a team that had only played two European opponents in five years under Broos - which resulted in a 5-0 drubbing by the then reigning world champions, France.

Their other clash with a European side was a 1-1 draw with Andorra, a match they should have comfortably won as they were up against an inferior opposition and were the better side.

Bafana failed to take their chances, resulting in them playing to a stalemate. These two games showed how much ground Bafana still needed to make.

But due to a combination of the South African Football Association’s poor finances and Broos’ pragmatism, Bafana never really played against strong opponents - especially if they had a choice on who they will face.

The toughest friendly that Bafana played under Broos, apart from the game against Les Bleus, was when they took on Ivory Coast in their own backyard.

The Elephants were using that match as preparation for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) that they were going to host.

Broos rejected a friendly against Morocco as he felt that was too soon for a team that was in re-building. There were reports that Saudi Arabia and Cameroon were looking to test themselves against Bafana, but those games never materialised.

Those are the missed opportunities that came back to haunt Bafana at the Azteca Stadium.

Bafana used opponents - in Panama, Nicaragua and Jamaica - that didn’t adequately help