Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has confirmed he had to call up a replacement for Lyle Foster due to injury.
Foster was in red-hot form for his club, scoring three goals in his last two games, including a brace against Oostende on Saturday but had to drop out of the squad due to injury.
As a consequence, Broos admitted that he enters the camp with mixed feelings due to the huge amount of injuries in his preferred squad.
“I’m here with mixed feelings, with one side happiness and the other side disappointment,” he said during a press conference on Monday.
“Happiness because first of all we are in a fantastic location here to have our training sessions. Also, everything is very good here, everything is just one step away.
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“I’m happy also because we have a camp in November. I said a few months ago that we needed that camp because of the fact that there is an enormous gap between September and next year March when we have to play Liberia so I’m happy that the camp is there and we have two games.
“Disappointment because we can’t follow the plan. The plan was to play those two matches with the guys who were there in September. Not all those guys but 75% of that, so when you see the list of injuries for the moment: we have Phete, who is injured, we have Sithole who is injured, we have Maela and Sibisi, we have Mayambela, we have Foster and then we have two guys, Mashego and Percy Tau who don’t play for the moment in their clubs.
“There is a lot of players who are not there. Therefor a little bit disappointment because the plan was to play, certainly to start with the same team that played against Sierra Leone but with all these injuries it’s not possible.”
Broos then confirmed that Foster couldn’t make the squad and Bathusi Aubaas received his maiden call-up instead.
“Yesterday morning, Foster phoned that he couldn’t be here. So we have to look for a substitute. I will not give so much comment on that but at last it will be Bathusi Aubaas, the player of TS Galaxy, who will join us today.”
Broos also confirmed that the technical team tried to call up another player but various means of contacting him between Sunday evening and Monday morning were fruitless until 11:00 AM when they decided not to go with him.
