Hugo Broos: The man who reshaped Bafana Bafana in his own way

If it were up to some South Africans, Hugo Broos would have been fired as Bafana Bafana coach immediately after the team’s disappointing display at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Morocco. This ended in a round-of-16 exit.

However, to their credit, the South African Football Association (Safa) backed the long-serving Belgian coach to lead the team at one last major tournament before his contract expires - the 2026 Fifa World Cup. After all, it was he who orchestrated said qualification in the first place.

Now the 74-year-old has repaid this faith shown in him by the federation. Broos and Bafana Bafana reached the round of 32 of the 2026 World Cup, currently taking place in Mexico, the US and Canada, by beating South Korea 1-0 on Thursday, 25 June, thanks to a strike by Cyprus-based winger Thapelo Maseko.

Whereas in the past South Africans would have been scrambling for calculators, trying to see what favours from other countries the team still needed to move on to the second round, the victory made it simple.

Bafana Bafana finished the group phase in second place and on four points in their allotted mini-league. Along with the win over South Korea, the South Africans drew one-all with Czechia and suffered a 2-0 loss to Mexico in their opening match. El Tri topped the group with three wins from their three matches.

Bafana’s bounce-back ability

The defeat to the Mexicans drew extensive criticism, aimed at Broos in particular. Again, if it were up to some supporters and pundits, the Belgian would have suffered the same fate as his coaching counterpart, Sabri Lamouchi.

The latter was sacked as Tunisia’s head coach after just one game at the World Cup. His team was walloped 5-1 by Sweden, costing him his job. Fellow Frenchman Hervé Renard was parachuted into the tournament. But his arrival did not stop the Tunisians from being eliminated from the World Cup.

Safa blocked out the noise of such a drastic and impulsive action with regards to Bafana Bafana’s boss. They had to, out of respect for Broos after he steered South Africa back to the global stage for the first time in 16 years. For his part, the coach was his usual confident and sharp-tongued self as he swatted away the team’s critics.

“I’ve been coaching for nearly 40 years and I know there is a side to the job where you are criticised. But people must know that I do things my way. I never listen to the trash on social media. I never listen to people who think they are important and have to criticise the team… It should be better that they shut up,” Broos said.

“This is part of my job. I know that when you lose, you’re criticised and when you win you are the king. Eight months ago when we qualified for the World Cup [by beating Rwanda 3-0], there was somebody who came to me and said: ‘Coach, they have to make a statue for you in South Africa.’ I told him that it should be made of wood, so that it burns easier when I lose,” the 74-year-old added.

“I’ve always had the belief in this group of players, even over the past weeks, when the critics were extremely harsh. But I never doubted, because these players already gave me so much that I was confident that we would have a good result against South Korea,” he said.

“They fought for every ball because they wanted to be in the second round as well. The combination between me as a coach and them as players is something unique. Yes, I am the coach. But I also feel like their friend. So, I’m very happy for them after we qualified for the knockouts.”

A rare World Cup experience

Before Broos led this current crop of players to the global stage, it was Portuguese tactician Carlos Queiroz who guided South Africa to World Cup qualification, in 2002. However, after a poor showing at the 2002 Afcon, Queiroz was replaced by Jomo Sono before the World Cup.

It would have been disrespectful for Safa to subject the 2017 Afcon-winning coach to the same fate. Broos found a Bafana Bafana team that was an outcast among the major South African national teams. Merely qualifying for key tournaments such as Afcon and the World Cup was a mammoth challenge. Publicly, there was indifference to the team’s matches.

But Broos has changed this. Whether they are being critical or praising the team, people care about Bafana Bafana again. Within the jubilation of South Africa finally breaking the glass ceiling of making it out of the group stage at World Cups, in their fourth appearance at the global soccer spectacle, Broos cautioned that South African soccer needs to do even more.

“This is new for us. That’s why when I arrived in South Africa, I said this country has to be in every big tournament. That’s the level where you learn the most, even when the results are not good. And we’ve done that. We have been to two Afcons and now we are in the World Cup. But it has to continue. At the next Afcon you have to be there again,” Broos said to Safa’s media department.

The Broos effect

Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams showered his coach with major praise, saying the Belgian’s contribution to South African soccer has been immense since his appointment by Safa five years ago.

“We worked so hard to be at the World Cup, it was not given to us. It took years of sacrifice for us to keep going, to keep the belief. I can remember when coach Broos took over and he promised that we will be at the 2026 World Cup,” Williams said.

“And we didn’t want to let him down. We worked so hard as a team [to ensure that promise became a reality]. We saw what qualification for the World Cup meant for South Africans. Now we are inspiring a whole nation,” the Bafana Bafana skipper added.

The South Africans can now dream even bigger. In tournament soccer, anything is possible once you reach the knockout stage. Every match is a final and the sharpest team on the day wins. On the back of the self-assured display against the South Koreans, Bafana Bafana will be brimming with confidence for their tussle against Canada.

That round-of-32 clash takes place on Sunday, at 9pm South African time. Although the Canadians will not be easy to topple, they are definitely beatable. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.