Hugo Broos: “5-0 loss to France not a shame for Bafana Bafana”

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has admitted that the heavy defeat to France is nothing to be embarrassed about for his charges.

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The world champions France ran riot, beating Bafana Bafana 5-0 in an international friendly match at a packed Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille on Tuesday evening.

France named a powerful line up

The memo did not seem like it had got across to the French technical staff, as they fielded a powerful side, despite resting many key players. France coach Didier Deschamps showed the team’s true intent by naming the likes of Raphael Varane, N’golo Kante, Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud in the starting line up for this fixture. Bafana Bafana quite simply had no answer to their host, as after a brief period of resistance, the gulf in quality between the two sides began to show. 

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France opened the scoring through a beautiful curling finish through Mbappe, who gave Bafana Bafana right back Nyiko Mobbie a torrid time all evening. The PSG forward would go on to double his tally with a penalty in the second half, while Giroud, Wissam Ben Yedder and Matteo Guendouzi, finished off the job for Les Bleus. The South African’s evening would then go from bad to worse, as substitute Khuliso Mudau would receive his marching orders with a red card in only his second game for the national team, resulting in the task becoming more difficult. 

Broos feels the result was not embarrassing for Bafana Bafana

With that being said, Broos didn’t see the result as a surprise and believes that it is not a shameful  result against a top class nation like France. 

“We knew before the game that there was a difference of level between the teams (Bafana Bafana and France). But for us, as I said yesterday, the result was not important, it was the experience. We are a young team with young players, who don’t have the experience that French players have. We don’t have the quality that French players have. This is the world champion, we fight for it (the match), we did what we had to do, but okay, when there is such a difference in quality, it can happen that you lose the game with this result. So it’s not a shame for us, even though it is 5-0, we know why and again, the experience that we get from playing this opponent is more that (more important than) the result today” said coach Broos.

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It will now be back to the drawing board for Broos and his Bafana Bafana charges after this chastening defeat, as the focus now shifts to the Afcon 2023 qualifiers in June.