Echoes of '96 as Bafana Bafana aim for AFCON glory

THE SUPERSTITIOUS are already saying it is written in the stars. The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title is South Africa’s for the taking, they believe. And how can they not think so when there’s so much that is seemingly aligned to that one time when Bafana Bafana ruled the continent?

As Hugo Broos and his team prepare to travel to Morocco for the biennial, continental soccer showpiece – South African soccer fans are getting ‘that 1996 feeling’ about this one.

Three decades on, it would appear we are due another triumph. The bronze medal position from the previous tournament has seen Bafana reclaim their place among the continent’s football giants – so much so that they will start the tournament that will run from December 21 to January 18 as one of the favourites.

Some members of that victorious squad which was coached by the dearly departed Clive Barker are saying they are seeing in the current squad some similarities to theirs.

For starters, Bafana are in the same group as Angola and Egypt – just as Neil Tovey and Co were back in 1996. Zimbabwe have taken the place of Cameroon in this year’s tournament. A sign that history is going to repeat itself? Many believe so, the belief that Bafana can beat Angola and Zimbabwe and thus qualify for the knockout stage.

Of course, history does not play the game and the boys are going to have to get on to the pitch and do the job. And it is there that the likes of Andre Arendse, Doctor Khumalo, Mark Williams and Shaun Bartlett are anticipating to be dispossessed of their long-standing status as national heroes.

This Bafana, they are in agreement, has earned the confidence of not only them as former players but that of the nation with some convincing performances over a long period of time.

In Broos, they see a coach similar to Barker – a father figure type who believes in his players and is not easily swayed from his ways. It is for that reason that, like in 1996, just about every South African soccer fan can give you the starting line-up, Broos having consistently stuck with his tried and trusted and thus building a solid team. The prevailing mood of excitement about the squad and the overall optimism among the fans talks to that.

Since Broos took over, Bafana are no longer the continent’s laughing stock. They are respected, feared even, thanks to their stellar performances which saw them winning more than losing. Their qualification for the FIFA World Cup ahead of star-studded Nigeria has left the continent in awe, and this is reminiscent to those times when Barker’s Bafana moved from being termed four-by-fours (thanks to their often conceding four goals in defeats) to dominating the continent to the extent of winning the title on home soil.

Broos’s men are going to have to do that away from home soil. But there’s no saying they cannot, not when they did so impressively in the Ivory Coast to finish in third place in the previous edition.

They have the backing of Bafana ancestors, a number of whom have said they would like for the title to come back home before they die like some of those who were key to that glorious success of 1996.

Bafana are playing Ghana on Tuesday prior to their going to Morocco and they probably will win that match at Dobsonville Stadium. The discerning follower of the national team will remember that ahead of that 1996 success, Bafana had beaten the Black Stars in the Simba Four Nations tournament.

Another reason for the superstitious to point at as a sign ‘it’s coming home’ as the English would say, right?