Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has explained why he has rung the changes in his squad for the friendlies against France and Guinea, singling out two Orlando Pirates players who can improve the team.
The Belgian tactician announced a preliminary 29-man squad ahead of the two friendlies in March, with Bafana taking on Guinea on 25 March and world champions France four days later.
Broos explained that he wants to use the two games to try out a few things and give other players a chance before qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations start.
“These are friendly games, but they are more about preparation. These games are an opportunity for us to try some things,” he said.
“You cannot try things when you are playing qualifiers, you have to be sure when you put your team on the pitch. You have to be sure that those are the right players in the right positions.
“Now we can try [new things now] and we can see what that those players are giving to the team. I’m thinking about Mosele [Goodman], I’m thinking about Shandu [Bandile], I’m thinking about Lakay [Fagrie].
“Those players can be an improvement for us. The result for me is not so important, not at all. But I want to see the things we try in those games can be improvement for the team or not”.
The 69-year-old also pointed out that the technical team identified some weaknesses in the Bafana squad and are trying to shake things up a little bit.
“The challenges, I think, [that came] after the qualifiers for the World Cup, we evaluated the team and saw that there were some weaknesses, certainly in the game against Ghana. The team was not ready to play such a game,” he added
“We saw that Ghana started the game very aggressively and we didn’t have an answer to that, so that was one of the things we saw, and therefore we started to look for other players and see where we could improve the team.
“So those two games [against France and Guinea] are not really about the results but more about preparation for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in June. So there will be new players, we will see if they are playing well in their clubs and then see if they perform for Bafana, which is a level higher.
“Let us hope that they improve the team. So we are using these game to be ready for June and know that we have a stronger team than the team that played in the [World Cup] qualifiers.”
