Hugo Broos confident Bafana will rise to AFCON despite flat Ghana showing

But he remains confident that they will be ready for their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) opener against Angola next Monday. 

South Africa needed a moment of quality to secure the victory, with Sipho Mbule producing a superb long-range strike in the second half. 

Broos’ starting line-up was largely made up of fringe players as the squad prepares to depart for Marrakesh tonight via Dubai.

"[Not the]Game, you want to see, I'm happy with the result, it's always better to go to Morocco with a victory than with a draw or in the worst case, defeat but I think that we can do much better than today,” Broos said. 

“Maybe the tournament next week played already in the heads of the players. 'I don't want to be injured today' and also it has the new boys, it's a big difference for them to play suddenly on that level but on the other side I'm not worried.

“I know that there are few important players that are joining us on Thursday and we still have four days to do the finishing touch. I'm sure that we will be ready next Monday to play against Angola. Again, it was not a game we wanted to play but I think I can be happy with the result."

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While there were concerns over the overall performance, Broos believes the team will be ready for the pressure that awaits them when they face Angola at the Marrakesh Stadium. 

The Belgian-born coach feels the squad’s recent run of competitive international fixtures has helped prepare them for the demands of AFCON football.

"Surely, we will start the AFCON with another state than two years ago but it was not the case today. We didn't feel pressure, it was a friendly game, sure you want to win it but I agree that next Monday when the game starts against Angola that the pressure will be a little bit higher than two years ago when we played against Mali,” the coach added. 

“But I think this team can resist that pressure. We showed that in the qualifiers for the World Cup, there were some very important games, under pressure that we did very well. 

“Think about the game at home against Nigeria, think about the last game against Rwanda. So, this team has experience and I'm not worried about that, we will see and we will feel that opponents will play in a totally different way than they did two years ago."