Cape Town — Impressed Hugo Broos admits he was chuffed with his charges after Bafana Bafana scored a come-from-behind 2-1 win over neighbours Mozambique at Mbombela Stadium on Thursday evening.
After the match, the Belgian tactician Broos said the players had learnt lessons from friendlies in September against Sierra Leone (4-0) and Botswana (2-1), and those were wonderfully applied against Mozambique.
"We saw something in September (in our friendlies against Sierra Leone and Botswana) and we worked on it the last few days," said Broos.
"We spoke with the players and it's a good thing for a coach to see that what you ask as a coach, that the players do it on the pitch.
"So, that will give us more confidence and we will try to win the game on Sunday against Angola. If we can achieve that then I think we are more than ready for the important qualifier games in March."
Broos was impressed with the overall performance of the team, who were without several first choices.
“It is not only the win, but also the way we got the win,” said Broos. “We played a very good game.
"We made a little mistake at the beginning of the match, and it was 1-0 to Mozambique after Nelson Divrassone scored.
"I can say we controlled the game from the first minute to the last. It is just some problems sometimes with our thoughts.”
Broos said he was taken by surprise when captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams showed a lack of composure when clearing the lines in front of the goal.
“Even with Ronwen a few times, we are not used to seeing this from a goalkeeper who is strong with his feet, twice did dangerous things," said Broos. "These were the only moments Mozambique had, except for one shot that came off the crossbar.
“We dominated and played good football. I counted we had ten chances. I am not only happy, I am also proud of the team."
Broos said he had a simple game plan for the team, and it worked well.
“I just asked the boys to go on and play and we didn’t play bad, certainly not,” said Broos.
“We played against an opponent who remained close to the goal and had a very quick counter-attack. They tried to be dangerous, but we controlled them.
“I said to [the players], ‘let the ball go, don’t run too much with the ball, you can win that game’, and we won.”
Bafana will host Angola at Mbombela Stadium on Sunday (start 3pm).
IOL Sport