Hugo Broos has pin-pointed what he believes is the reason behind Bafana Bafana's sluggish start in their two opening 2025 AFCON qualifiers after needing added time to seal a victory against South Sudan.
Broos' troops have looked a shadow of their true selves in their two opening matches of the AFCON qualifiers.
It took an added time goal to salvage a draw against Uganda last Friday at Orlando Stadium and then it took another late effort, a moment of magic from midfielder Thalente Mbatha to steal a win against a stubborn South Sudan on Tuesday afternoon.
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Speaking at the post-match press conference, Broos explained that he believes a lack of competitive matches has cost his players the necessary sharpness.
The start of the PSL league season was postponed to September after MultiChoice pulled out of sponsoring the league.
Betway have since taken over, but the consequence is that the league season will only officially kick off this weekend as opposed to the start of August as per tradition.
"First of all, I said it last weekend that the big trouble we have now is that our players did not play competitive games," Broos said.
"80% of the players played on pre-season friendly games and we saw that in both games we were not sharp enough. This is not the South Africa we know from other games.
"Secondly, okay, individual mistakes can happen, but now we have made individual errors in two games. The second goal by Uganda was a mistake, today two goals of South Sudan were from individual mistakes.
"Two defensive mistakes we made. So, this is something we have to do better, in the next game, certainly against Congo.
"I am sure we will do better because my players have played more competitive games because this weekend the league games start in South Africa and I think that was the biggest problem South Africa had, that we didn't have enough competition.
"There was a lack of sharpness in our game."
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The win leaves Bafana second in Group K behind Uganda after two matches.
The two top teams in the group at the end of the qualifiers will go through to the AFCON finals in Morocco in December 2025.