Bafana Bafana may have found an unlikely partner in Nigeria in their quest to qualify for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.
This was evident in coach Hugo Broos’s jubilation after learning that Nigeria had beaten Rwanda 2-0 at Amahoro Stadium in Kigali on Friday to remain four points behind Bafana at the halfway mark of qualification.
Bafana’s 2-0 victory over Lesotho at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on the same night — courtesy of second-half goals from young players Relebohile Mofokeng,20, and Jayden Adams, 23 — puts Broos’s charges in the driving seat in Group C on 10 points — two ahead of Benin who drew 2-2 with Zimbabwe in Durban despite having had a 2-0 lead.
The Super Eagles are desperate to catch up with Bafana because they started badly in their first four matches — playing three 1-1 draws against South Africa, Lesotho and Zimbabwe before losing 2-1 away to Benin.
In their desperation, Broos believes, Nigeria will continue to give advantage to Bafana as long as they keep winning their games. “I said a few days ago that there was a team in the group that can help us a lot, and that is Nigeria. I saw that they beat Rwanda today (Friday). They can’t afford to lose any more points. Against every team, they’ll do everything to win,” he said.
“It’s up to us now to keep that situation [being ahead of Nigeria], and certainly next Tuesday [against Benin], we shouldn’t do stupid things in Ivory Coast. We’re two points ahead and this is a good situation, we have to prepare ourselves now for next Tuesday. It will be as difficult a game as today, different but as difficult. If we’re well prepared, and we’re able to produce the same performance as today, I think we can win the game there also.”
It’s up to us now to keep that situation [being ahead of Nigeria], and certainly next Tuesday [against Benin], we shouldn’t do stupid things in Ivory Coast.
— Hugo Broos, Bafana Bafana coach
Bafana play Benin on Tuesday at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Ivory Coast because Benin lacks infrastructure fit to stage international matches. Nigeria tackle Zimbabwe at Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo, Nigeria, while Rwanda will host Lesotho in Kigali on Tuesday.
After the Lesotho game, watched by a capacity crowd in Polokwane, Broos said if his team avoids doing “stupid things” against Benin they will be closer to booking their World Cup ticket.
Broos’s team will make history if they qualify for the global showpiece because the last to do so was Carlos Queiroz’s side in 2002, though the Mozambique-born Portuguese coach was denied by Safa to coach the side for the South Korea/Japan event.
With nine African sides guaranteed a spot in next year’s World Cup — which has been expanded to 48 teams from 32 — Bafana have a greater chance to make it with a game or two to spare, if they continue winning.
After Tuesday’s game against Benin, Bafana will face four more qualifiers. They may play all of them in South Africa because Lesotho and Zimbabwe don’t have Fifa-approved stadiums.
Bafana will host Nigeria and Rwanda — the only team to beat Bafana in these qualifiers — later this year.
Bafana deserved their hard-fought victory against a Lesotho side content with just stealing a point. Bafana missed a number of good opportunities to break the deadlock before an Elias Mokwana pass carved open the Lesotho defence for Mofokeng to fire in the opener on the hour mark.
Adams added the second four minutes later to set Bafana for another emphatic win fitting an upward trajectory that saw them lose just one match [in open play] in 17 outings last year to break into Africa’s top 10 ranked sides.
Broos said the lessons Bafana learned at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast last year helped them remain calm against a stubborn Likuena, though they never really threatened skipper Ronwen Williams in Bafana’s goal.
“We changed some things during half-time and, what makes me happy about this group is that when you ask them to do something, they’ll try to do it. In some cases, they succeed and today we did it immediately,” he said.
“In certain moments you start to doubt it when the ball hit the posts. It was like there was a wall in the goals and we couldn’t go through. But when there’s so much pressure the goal has to come, and I’m happy we got the first and the second nearly immediately after that.”
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