Photo Credit - SAFA Media.
South Africa coach Hugo Broos has explained why players’ mentality will be more important during their upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against Lesotho and Benin.
Bafana Bafana will host their COSAFA neighbours Lesotho at Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, Limpopo, on Friday, March 21, before they fly to Côte d’Ivoire via chartered flight to face Benin at Stade Félix Houphouët-Boigny in the second qualifier a few days later.
“I will not say that it will be a key point, but it can be if we can achieve six on six. I think we can make a big step to qualification, I am sure,’ said Broos ahead of the two games. “But we have to do it, so again these are very important games, very tough games, because don’t underestimate Lesotho, maybe not on quality but on mentality.
“It is a team that fights for 90 minutes for every meter and certainly when they play against South Africa, they will do one step more, I’m sure of it. Then we play Benin. We had difficulty against Benin one year ago when we played against them. We won 2-1 but it was a difficult game.
“The circumstances are different now, we made a lot of progression, but still, it will be a difficult game also. So, let’s hope we can achieve what we want, and we are able to do it. But again, in both games maybe the mentality will be more important than the quality.”
On Bafana opting to play their home fixture at Makoba Stadium, the Belgian coach said: “The moment they told me about Polokwane, the first thing I said, because I saw games played there on that pitch, I said first thing, if the pitch is not better, we don’t go and people started working and the pitch is fantastic.
“I was there last week, and beautiful, really beautiful. We don’t have an excuse if we don’t have the result we want against Lesotho, saying ‘yes the pitch was not good’. No, no, no, the pitch is fantastic, and people did fantastic work and I’m very happy with it.”
Bafana will assemble in Johannesburg on Monday, March 17 and then immediately travel to Polokwane where they will camp until the fixture against Lesotho.
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