Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has stated his assistant Helman Mkhalele would be the best choice to succeed him when he retires after the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Broos, heading into his fifth year with the South Africa national team has transformed the fortunes of Bafana, winning bronze at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, and now securing qualification for the 2025 edition in Morocco and the World Cup set to be hosted in United States of America, Mexico and Canada next year.
Having inherited a squad who failed to qualify for the 2021 AFCON and the near miss for the Qatar 2022 World Cup – there’s growing optimism about the future of South African football with it coinciding with the success of the junior national teams.
“What will my successor do? He must go on with my work, maybe in a another way, with different work methods but when you have that amount of players now with this talent, then you have to work with them, and it must start after the World Cup,” Broos said at SAFA House on Thursday in a round table discussion with the media.
“Maybe I can start a little bit [with the succession plan] with the World Cup but after that it needs to be little by little for the next AFCON and the next World Cup – I think South Africa certainly needs to be there again, the basic [plan] is there, it just needs to built up in the right way.
“I think the best thing to do is Helman becomes the coach after me, you will have the continuation of the same thing, the way of work, the philosophy will stay the same with a more African thing, because I am European. He thinks 95% of the things, the same as me.
“That’s why I’m so happy with him, 95% of the time we’re thinking the same, so it should be very good, the only problem is he doesn’t have his qualifications, you can avoid that when Helman can follow the courses of UEFA Pro License, because you need it as a coach of the national team…”
‘No Bafana success without Helman’
Broos went on to wax lyrical about the 1996 AFCON winner, who he stated has come out of his shell during his tenure in the national team, having first been his second assistant alongside Čedomir Janevski, who left after just one year working with Broos.
“Without Helman we would not have had the success and performances we have now, he helped me a lot – certainly the first year and I will always be grateful for him, yeah, he’s fantastic,” Broos stated with a glowing smile while admitting he’d love to have continued this project, if he were younger.
“It’s not my job to think about this but what kind of coach do you want? And look now at this one or that one, everyone knows I stop after the World Cup because of my age, not because I don’t want to be here anymore, if I was 10 years younger, I’d want to stay another two years, seven years, I’m very happy here! The way I can work, what we achieve, I’m very happy here,” Broos continued.
“But I will be 74, I read I will be the oldest coach, you can’t be proud of that – the oldest coach, so it’s time to go to my family, who made sacrifices for the last 30 years – because they wanted to me to focus on my career and now it’s time to focus on them, it’s the reason I will stop after the World Cup.”
Did you know that the iDiski Times Digital Newspaper is completely free! Download it now by clicking the button below or fill in the form to have it sent to you every week.
