Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos says he will not in any way influence any decisions taken by his successor.
Broos became the first coach to guide Bafana Bafana into the second round of the FIFA World Cup. Bafana bombed out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the round of 32, after a narrow 1-nil loss to co-hosts Canada on Sunday.
Following their progression to the last 32 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a lot was expected from Bafana Bafana against Canada. But things did not go as planned, despite coach Hugo Broos having made just one change to the team that beat South Korea last Wednesday. The game looked to be heading for extra-time until Canada broke the deadlock in injury time through their captain, Stephen Eustaquio. This could possibly have been Hugo Broos’ last match as a coach. The outgoing Bafana Bafana coach says he will not interfere with the job of his successor.
“It’s something I will not do when I stop there is new coach and there should be a new coach, he has to work the way he has to work, he doesn’t have to listen to me. Or I don’t have to give him advice do this do that I think there will be another coach after me he will know what he has to do. The only thing is that he has a good team it’s up to him now to work with it and maybe to try those lads that are still in our team to make it better, to progress and that’s all I have to say it’s not up to me to give him advice”.
The biggest challenge for the South African Football Association (SAFA) is that there is very little time left before the start of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers to be co-hosted in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The qualifiers for the AFCON tournament to be played in East Africa will start in September.
But Broos says his door will always remain open to offer advice to SAFA.
“First of all, I’m always open if people need advice there is no problem, secondly again I will see in the next days what I will do in the future. Yes, I always said this is my last World Cup that is for sure but again what will happen in the days, weeks it depends also a little bit how South Africa see the future”.
Broos admits that Canada deserved to advance to the last-16 of this year’s World Cup as they were better than Bafana Bafana in many aspects.
“I think we have to honest today we lost the game because there was a lack of power and speed in our team when I compare with our opponents, we lost a lot of duels man against man and the speed in our team not only the speed, the running speed but also the speed of execution. When you see how quick it went with Canada and also with the building up, how long sometimes it was to take a decision those are things we have to work on”.
But Broos says he’s still proud of his players after helping South Africa qualify for their first World Cup in more than two decades. He says the cherry on top was to coach the first Bafana team to reach the second round of the FIFA World Cup.
“When we look back, I think we can be very satisfied with what we did it was 24 years ago that South Africa could qualify for the World Cup we did it. Everyone hoped and some expected that we should achieve the second round we did it also so okay we are disappointed we wanted to win but it would have been a miracle if we should have been to the third round but we don’t have to be too much disappointed again”.
Broos who also won the bronze medal at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, believes that he has laid a solid foundation for the future Bafana Bafana coach.
It is still not clear when Bafana Bafana will be returning to South Africa.
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