Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos happy to have silenced doubters - 'I’m not stupid, nobody understood what I was doing, no players from Kaizer Chiefs, what is that? Nothing was good'

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos became the first coach to help the country qualify for the back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations competition.

Mzansi finished top of Group K with 14 points after four wins and two draws, one point more than Uganda who finished second.

Prior to the final rounds of the qualifiers, Broos boldly stated he would resign if he failed to qualify for the biennial competition but he has now explained why he said so.

"You know I’m not stupid, I knew we would qualify [for 2025 Afcon]," the 73-year-old opened up to the media.

"I said [if we don’t qualify [for World Cup I would leave too], but if you compare the team from two years ago and the team now, there’s a difference of day and night in everything.

In quality, in power, in results, in whatever you say, there’s a big difference and we worked on it to make this team, it was not easy," he added.

The Belgian has further explained how tough it was for him to build a team, "Certainly in the beginning, nobody understood what I was doing, young players, no players from Chiefs, what is that? Nothing was good," the former Cameroon coach continued.

"Now we are where we are, and everyone is proud of Bafana Bafana at the moment. You see the crowds have found their way back to the stadium and that makes me also very proud to see that, it’s nice for the players too. 

"We played games in the Covid period and then in front of nobody.“You have to play the important game in front of [no fans] this is terrible, everything has changed and we are very happy about that."

Since taking over as Bafana Bafana's coach, South Africa have played 40 games across all competitions.

They have managed to secure 21 wins, 14 draws, and five losses. Interestingly, the defeats - against Ghana, France, Morocco, Rwanda, and Mali, have been away from home.

Broos and his troops will next be assigned to the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers, which will be hosted jointly by the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Bafana Bafana will return to action in March 2025 with back-to-back games against Lesotho and Benin respectively.