Bafana Bafana didn’t enjoy the start many would have hoped for at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast on Tuesday, but they still have the backing and understanding of certain experts in South African football.
One such supporter is one of the PSL's most successful coaches ever, Gordon Igesund who relates to the experience as he was also the Bafana coach about a decade ago, and many feel that the former Manning Rangers mentor should've stayed on longer at the helm.
Igesund had lost to Mali at the 2013 Afcon at home in the quarter-finals when South Africa's hearts were broken in a penalty shootout. The team had big boots to fill at the time because of Bafana's 1996 Afcon triumph on home soil.
On Tuesday, the current Mali outfit beat Bafana 2-0 and coach Hugo Broos is coming under pressure to turn things around in Group E.
Since this is a different squad to the one that reached the quarter-finals in 2019, and considering how South Africa failed to reach the previous Afcon under Molefi Ntseki, Igesund believes this tournament shouldn't be a yardstick to judge Broos and his team prematurely.
“What I’m saying is that these young players have proven they have got a lot of quality and we got to understand that they don’t have the experience yet but how does one get experience?” Igusend asked GameON on Radio 2000.
“You get experience by playing and making mistakes and nobody has become a top team without having made mistakes and they are going to learn and whatever we do in this competition shouldn’t be judged on; ‘no, we never won the tournament so we are going to change our coach'. We need continuity there,” he added.
Igesund believes the structure must remain as Broos has shown continuity with the players he has selected.
“There’s something that’s been put in place so let’s continue with that now. We’ve got the talent as I said earlier on, whether we’ve got enough experience right now, no maybe we haven’t.
“But the good thing Broos has done is he has stuck with and believes in certain players and his team is a very young team, very quick with a lot of pace and it’s the secret in modern football,” Igesund stated.
Next in line for the one-time African champions at the continental showpiece is a date with regional rivals Namibia on Sunday, before closing off the group stages against Tunisia next Wednesday.
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