Describing the current camp as “difficult”, Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has placed emphasis on the need to minimise intensity in training for the reason that some of the influential players have hardly rested in the past few weeks.
Bafana are in camp, gearing up to get their World Cup qualifiers’ campaign underway by hosting Benin at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday (3pm).
Broos has bemoaned it’ll be difficult to have intense training sessions as Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates players joined the camp after a very hectic schedule.
“It’s a difficult camp when you see what Sundowns players have done in the last six weeks, also the Pirates players, they nearly had one day rest. It was always from one game to another, so this will not be the same camp like others on a [training] session levels,” Broos said at a media conference at Tuks High Performance Centre in Pretoria yesterday.
“I think the most important thing for us will be to have players who are recuperated and fresh Saturday and next Tuesday, that’s our task. We will see what we will do at training. Okay we will train but the intensity of training will be very low and recuperation will be very important.”
Apart from Benin, Bafana’s other World Cup qualifiers Group C opponents are Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Rwanda. They face the latter away in their second game on Tuesday (3pm SA time).
Broos is hell-bent on taking SA to their first World Cup, to be co-hosted by USA, Mexico and Canada, since 2010 when this country only qualified by virtue of being the hosts.
“It’s an important camp because we play World Cup qualifiers. For you South Africans it’s 12 years since you last qualified for the World Cup…in 2010 but it was a little present for you because you organised it,” Broos said.
“It’s time that SA qualifies again for such a big tournament, so therefore it’s a very important camp. We have to be careful that we have a good start… that we don’t get behind from the beginning.” – SowetanLIVE.