STELLENBOCH, SOUTH AFRICA – JANUARY 08: Bafana Head Coach, Hugo Broos during the South Africa national mens soccer team media open day at Lentelus Sportsground on January 08, 2023 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. (Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images)
Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has explained the omission of Iqraam Rayners from his final 23-man squad, despite the player’s impressive form at club level.
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Rayners is fresh from a successful 2023 where in 34 appearances, he scored 21 goals and created four assists. He managed to surpass 50 career goals in over 100 matches for the club. He scooped two DStv Premiership Player of the Month awards, four Carling Black Label Knockout Man of the Match awards, and was crowned the Nedbank Cup Player of the tournament.
Even at Bafana Bafana level, he managed one goal in five appearances, yet he could only make it onto the standby list of Hugo Broos’ final team.
Before jetting off to Ivory Coast, the Belgian faced questions from the media at the Southern Sun Hotel, one of which included the absence of the Stellies hitman from the squad.
“It’s my choice. That’s the only thing I can say. I don’t think that it’s such a big difference between [having] three and four [players]. Secondly, there is a side [where] when you take those guys with you and you have to tell them, ‘bye bye guys, you can go home,'” he told journalists.
“It’s not there to be to be happy for, not from my side [but] for the players. I did it in Cameroon and it was not nice from my side to tell them [on the] last day, ‘okay guys, thank you. You were good during the camp, but now you have to go home’.
“With the injury of Mothobi now maybe it would have been better that they were there. But again, as I said, the one who will join us if Mothobi is not going with us, have a few days more rest and this is not bad, I think,” he explained.
It remains to be seen whether Mvala will recover in time to form part of the final squad or if he will be replaced by Orlando Pirates’ Thapelo Xoki.
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