Hugo Broos calls for better national team continuity to stop talent drain

Seven years ago, Bafana Bafana’s new call-up and Sekhukhune United attacker Keletso Makgalwa was one of the key players in coach Thabo Senong’s Amajita team that participated in the FIFA U20 World Cup in South Korea. 

Since Coach Broos’ arrival in 2021, some of the players in his group, including Teboho Mokoena, Grant Magerman, Luther Singh, Reeve Frosler, and Sipho Mbule, have been the only players to make it into his selections from that team. 

Owing to different reasons, most of the players in that squad, including Makgalwa, had their rise to the senior team delayed. 

Broos says this could be avoided with continuity.

"It's important, I always said, that international experience and for them, those who were already at the World Cup or an AFCON with U20 or U17. They already have that but you have to continue and that's why, I think we talked about it maybe last press conference or the press conference before now you have a basic,” Broos said. 

“You have U17 who are in the World Cup, you have U20 who won AFCON, who were in the World Cup but now the next step has to be done and if you don't go on working with those guys, all the talent will be lost as quick as you can think. 

“So, we have to go on working with them and give them the chances in the next months and years for Bafana Bafana because before they are not with Bafana Bafana, before they are not on training with Bafana Bafana, we will not know if they can make the next step."

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With the next U23 team set to play Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers as of next year, in preparations for the next Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, Broos says it’s important that they start preparing that team next year and start to blood in the players from the Amajita team, which was at the U20 World Cup.

"The advantage, we may have maybe in other years before is that we have now a pool of players who have already international experience on youth level. So, it's up to us now to go on working with them in the next months already and the next years and then I think the future for Bafana Bafana is very bright because there is talent but you have to be careful also that you don't call those players too soon,” the coach added.

“I can't call for example Smith [Tylon] or Campbell [Shandre] in the national team now and go to AFCON, this is too soon. I can kill those guys and I don't want to do it because the talent is there, so it's important to give them the chances in the next months for example, to give them the experience on international level."