Bafana Bafana’s 2023 Afcon campaign in Cote d’Ivoire has been nothing short of a miracle! Truth be told, they surprised a lot of people as most South Africans, and even parts of the continent, expected them to just add numbers at the biennial tournament. No one, at least as far as we’ve seen and heard, predicted that coach Hugo Broos’ charges would have such an impeccable tournament and steal so many hearts. In fact, they were expected to play their three mandatory group stage games and come back home to watch the rest of the tournament with us – the fans!
For them to go as far as the semi-finals, losing against Nigeria on penalties after creating a couple of chances to finish the game off in regulation time, is something not many would have predicted. Losing to our West African opponents is always a bitter pill to swallow, but they say penalties are a lottery. They are a very cruel part of the Beautiful Game, but because football is a fair game, we managed to finish on the right side of the following penalty shootout against DR Congo in the third/fourth place play-off. Interestingly, we won the first shootout against Cape Verde, lost the second against Nigeria and won the third against Congo. No one likes losing, but we have every reason to be proud of our football national team. We can’t hide the fact that coach Broos and his boys really, really made us proud! They raised our flag high and rejuvenated the passion associated with Bafana Bafana. Even the pessimists enjoyed a humble pie and acknowledged the good progress made by the coach, his technical team and the players on the field. Not only South Africans, but the rest of the continent and parts of the world were surprised by the improvement showed by our team at this tournament.
There is so much that one can take as positives from Bafana’s performances at this tournament. Yes, winning and being crowned champions would have been an ideal reward for the team’s performances, but one has to be realistic enough to remember where we were before the tournament and be grateful for where we are now. For us to know the extent of the importance of finishing third, one has to look back and remind ourselves of the last time we had Bafana playing in the last weekend of Africa’s biggest tournament. To think the last time our team came back with an Afcon medal was 24 years ago makes you realise just how important this third place finish is in the bigger scheme of things. It makes you appreciate it even more because it is a step closer to the final and a massive improvement by our coach, technical team and the players. Also, if you factor in how short and improper our preparation for this tournament was, you have to give the team all the credit in the world because what they achieved is out of this world.
