Bafana need more players based overseas to improve, says Broos

South African players moving to clubs in strong European leagues is part of the answer to improving Bafana Bafana’s competitiveness, national coach Hugo Broos said after the team’s disappointing 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) campaign.

Returning on Wednesday from Morocco, where Bafana were defeated 2-1 by Cameroon in the last 16 on Sunday, Broos was asked about the need to improve the standard of warm-up friendlies ahead of the 2026 World Cup in June and July.

Many pundits have called for the South African Football Association to arrange better and more varied competition in such matches than “Cosafa countries” such as Zambia, who Bafana beat 3-1 in a warm-up for the Afcon. South Africa also edged a local-based Ghana B side 1-0 ahead of their departure for the Afcon, and had been tipped as dark horses after their bronze medal in Ivory Coast in early 2024.

Broos said he is not convinced playing strong countries in friendlies will help raise Bafana’s standard much, pointing to the standard of club football played by South Africa’s opponents at Afcon.

“When you see all those teams we played; they are teams with players who play in Europe — we don’t have that. And that is a disadvantage for South Africa,” he said.

“Even Angola have players based in Europe and I don’t even speak about Cameroon ... because [Cameroonian Football Federation president Samuel] Eto’o changed everything and when you see where those players are playing — there is a striker playing at [Bayer] Leverkusen, he’s 19 years old.

“So this is the opportunity our players need to have because they need to be challenged more. And I said it from the beginning that the level of the PSL, compared to the level we face in the last weeks, is [a gap that is] very big.

“And you can only make that gap smaller when you have players who are playing in very difficult conditions [for their clubs].

“So let’s hope the players in the future will have those opportunities to go to Europe and play in those difficult competitions because that would help this team enormously.

“It’s not that you play against Argentina once or Ghana once then suddenly your level improves. But yeah, what can we do? We just have to hope they get those opportunities and make that step.”

South African players based in the PSL are often paid as much as they might earn in competitive smaller European leagues such as Scandinavia, Belgium and Portugal and can often choose familiar home conditions rather than the discomfort of a foreign environment.

Bafana progressed past Group B at the Afcon as runners-up but did not find full flow in any of their matches in Morocco, including the 2-1 wins against Angola and Zimbabwe and 1-0 defeat against 10-player Egypt.