LOTS of noise was made about Kaizer Chiefs players not making the cut in Hugo Broos’ Bafana Bafana squad for the two recent successful outings in the World Cup qualifiers against Lesotho and Benin.
Chiefs fans and some pundits questioned Broos’ decision to not call up the Chiefs duo of midfielder Thabo Cele and goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma.
In response to that, Broos did not mince his words, but he shot straight back, stating that he cautiously left out Chiefs players because the team are struggling.
“You can’t say that Chiefs already are back. I thought maybe at the beginning of the season, but I don’t know what happened, because they are still struggling,” Broos said.
Even when the likes of Tim Sukazi, the TS Galaxy owner, added fuel to that Phefeni fire by pointing out that there should be more of The Rockets players in the Bafana squad, Broos again was not going to take that lying down.
“When the player is ready, I will call them, whether they are from Chippa United or (Mamelodi) Sundowns… Secondly, it will only be me who will choose who will be in the national team. If I do not want to call your player, I will not call him.”
At least Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi responded respectfully to all that talk.
“We have to respect the choices and the decisions of the national team coach, because he’s the one who makes the choices,” Nabi said after their last game ahead of the Fifa break, which they lost 2-0 to strugglers Richards Bay FC.
Nabi’s mature response will go a long way to endearing Chiefs players to Broos, but right now, the ball really is in their court to back him up and everyone who made noise about their snub.
Chiefs’ next four games are winnable by their standards, or at least by their expectations.
After facing Golden Arrows on Saturday, they have TS Galaxy, Chippa United and Marumo Gallants, before taking on Orlando Pirates for a grudge match on May 3.
After Bafana’s clean sweep in the past two games, some fans have also ululated the snubbing of Chiefs players, stating that it helped Bafana avoid a potential losing curse.
Such comments should really fire up the Chiefs players to at least spite those who say they carry “a losing curse”.
Chiefs have eight more league games to play this season.
The 29 points they collected in the 22 games puts them in the top-eight bracket, but they can still play for more.
