Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos says the form Yusuf Maart has shown since his move to Kaizer Chiefs has not been enough to warrant a place in the national team.
Maart, 27, has made headlines over the past two weeks for his display in the Soweto derby where he scored a wonder goal to beat his former club Orlando Pirates 1-0.
And the player was a regular feature in the national team since breaking through after helping Sekhukhune United win promotion to the South African top flight in 2019.
He was part of the squad that won the COSAFA Cup and went on to rack up nine senior international caps but last featured in the 2-1 defeat to Morocco in which he lost the ball before the late match-winning goal from the Atlas Lions.
“Performances… do you think it’s enough when he scored a brilliant goal,” Broos said when asked about him missing the final squad.
“Everyone was saying that Maart was not playing well with Chiefs, I’m not saying it, I read it – I read it in the papers. He was not playing well and then suddenly he [scores] a fantastic goal and then you will say, ‘ah, you see a fantastic goal’.
“He’s again [on form], why? Because he scored that goal? No, it’s not like that and when you select like that, then every time you will have 25 new players because there’s always [players] who are playing in that moment well.
“It doesn’t work like that, so Maart is someone we look at every week like we did with the 40 other players, so if Maart is again on the level he was at Sekhukhune, what he didn’t do now until the [Soweto Derby], you agree? Okay, it’s up to him…[to improve].”
Maart has scored once and has yet to register an assist for Chiefs since making a reported R5-million switch from Babina Noko in the off-season.
