Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos reckons that dumping Morocco out of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations tournament was something special following his team’s 2-0 victory over the Atlas Lions at the Laurent Pokou Stadium in San Pedro, Ivory Coast, early on Wednesday morning (South African time).
Second half goals by Evidence Makgopa and Teboho Mokoena set Bafana up against Cape Verde in the quarter-finals of the competition on Saturday evening.
“I’m very happy. We beat Morocco. Beating a team like Morocco is something special. First half, I thought both teams were afraid of each other. But the second half, the game was wide open with the few chances for Morocco. But we scored and that is always important,” Broos, who led Bafana to their second win over the Atlas Lions between now and June last year, said.
“After that, yes, we were a little bit lucky because Morocco started to use power play. But after the second goal the match was over and we are in the quarter-finals, and we are very, very, very happy. I don’t think that I have to tell you that I’m very happy. We beat Morocco and this is a very good team with very good players but we did the right analysis and the way we played, the tactic was the right one.”
This was a sweet victory for Bafana as few people gave them a chance of coming out victorious against the 2022 FIFA World Cup semi-finalists, who are ranked number one in Africa.
Meanwhile, things didn’t go well for the Atlas Lions who missed a penalty and also finished the match with 10 men. Trusted defender Achraf Hakimi missed a penalty after Mothobi Mvala had handled the ball inside the box.
Disaster struck when the Moroccans were reduced to 10 men after Sofyan Amrabat was red carded for a second bookable offence following a foul on Mokoena.
