The Star Opinion

Safa must back Broos: Mzansi has a poor history of sacking Bafana coaches

Sizwe Mbebe|Published

Wise old dog: Bafana coach Hugo Broos. Picture: Gavin Barker/BackpagePix

It’s been a great week for South African football following a super successful campaign by Bafana Bafana at the Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.

The ouens might not have won the tournament, but they did claim the bronze medal which is way more than what was expected.

I can’t help to sit here and wonder how far we would have come if we actually had our best strikers Lebo Mothiba who’s injured and Lyle Foster who has mental health issues.

Special praise obviously goes out to the players, but we’ve also got to salute Hugo Broos and his supporting staff for a job well done.

Despite all of the above, I’m sitting here nervously wondering whether Safa might surprise us and let Broos go.

Ex-boss: Carlos Alberto Parreira. Picture: Allan Lipp/Backpagepix

We’ve seen this movie way too many times before.

Safa has been firing coaches despite positive results since the days of the late Clive Barker.

Barker won the Afcon in 1996 but strangely enough, his job security changed a year later and it was not because of results.

Qualification for the ’98 Afcon and World Cup were secured but his job security became unnecessarily threatened in the build up to the tournaments.

He decided to step down after the King Fahad Cup (now known as the Fifa Confederation Cup) which was hosted in Saudi Arabia back in ’97.

The man was laid to rest with the pain that he didn’t get to live the dream of leading the Golden Generation to the very first World Cup at France ’98.

SA legend: The late Clive Barker. Picture: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

I’m not trying to bore you with numbers, but I just want to paint a picture of how crazy some of the decisions by our leadership are in that national football office.

This is the same Barker that had won the Afcon two years before and still remains the only one to have achieved that.

We might have even won the Afcon back-to-back because Jomo Sono, who was installed as a caretaker coach a few weeks before the tournament, led the team to the runners-up spot.

If a coach that was employed temporarily as an emergency replacement did that, imagine what the coach that got them there would’ve done with that group of players.

Safa then said, thanks Jomo and they employed Frenchman Philip Troussier on a short-term contract to lead them to the World Cup.

They did it again two years later, firing Trott Moloto who had led the team to third place at Afcon 2000.

Moloto was one of the local coaches developed by Safa, but the organisation decided he wasn’t worth keeping around after just over a year in charge of the national team.

Thereafter it was Carlos Queroz, who was dismissed with qualification for the ’02 World Cup secured convincingly.

Queroz then famously sold the development plan he had for South Africa to the USA and then was employed as the head coach of Real Madrid straight after.

We’ve seen more shocking decisions after another since then by Safa, and that’s why I’m worried they will make another major error by letting the current coach go without a succession plan.

Broos’ age will forever be in the spotlight, so it might be a good idea to try the mentorship route again.

It worked well with Pitso Mosimane, who shadowed Carlos Alberto Parreira before taking over after the 2010 World Cup.

This is only one suggestion, but I’m pretty sure there will be other options for sure.

There are so many amazing coaches out there that would easily answer the call to coach South Africa, the land of Nelson Mandela.

My suggestion would be for Safa to continue with Broos and give themselves time to plan for the future.

dailyvoice@inl.co.za

Voice Sports Team

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