Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has encouraged his players not to overthink the threat posed by Egypt’s quality individual players, such as Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Manchester City’s Omar Marmoush in their clash in Agadir on Friday.
South Africa’s 2-1 win over Angola on Monday demonstrated how in Broos’ Bafana, fullbacks often bomb forward and even centre-backs such as Mbekezeli Mbokazi go on marauding runs.
Left-back Aubrey Modiba put in a fantastic offensive shift, adding bodies to the attack down his flank. Now, Broos faces the difficult task of potentially having to prepare for Salah on the same side of the pitch. The Belgian warned against overthinking the quality of individual Egypt players.
“We are focused on no-one [in particular among the opposition players]. The most important thing is the team… We all know how good Salah is; we all know how good Marmoush is and we all know how good Trézéguet is and other players,” Broos told the media in Thursday’s pre-match press conference.
“They are such a good team. Why should we focus on one player? We have to be prepared to beat the team rather than [seeing to it that] Salah doesn’t play good or Marmoush doesn’t play good. No; for us, it’s the team that’s important and we don’t really focus on one player.”
With regards to adapting his team’s propensity to take the ball out of defence, Broos insisted Bafana will not throw away the weapons in their arsenal to compensate for the strength of an opponent.
“First of all, there are some things we have to take into account, because we are playing against a very good team. That is true, but we will never adapt ourselves 100% to an opponent,” Broos said.
“We have our qualities. We have to try to show them tomorrow against that good team of Egypt.
“Surely, there are some precautions we have to take. It’s not a team like Zimbabwe; it’s not a team like Angola. This is a team a level higher, but in the other way, we don’t have to forget our qualities. We don’t have to forget the way we played in the past.
“We have to put Egypt in difficult [situations] and you can only do that when you use your quality and the players you normally use.”
Friday’s match at the Stade Adrar in Agadir will be a top-of-the-table clash in Group B. After South Africa’s win over Angola, Egypt came from behind to beat Zimbabwe 2-1, with goals from Marmoush and Salah.
The top two teams will advance to the round of 16, while the four best third-placed teams across six groups will also progress.