Former Moroka Swallows and Richards Bay coach Brandon Truter has
questioned Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos’s tactical shift in South
Africa’s Africa Cup of Nations defeat to Cameroon.
Broos deployed an unfamiliar 3-4-3 formation for the crucial Round of 16
match, a system the players had not used throughout the group stages. Truter
expressed his bewilderment at the timing and necessity of the change.
“As a coach I’m also a bit baffled as to why he changed the formation,”
Truter told the Siya crew. “Right through the group stages, we never played
this formation. So you have less than a week… and you change formations.
How much focus could have been given to that?”
Truter also criticized the decision to make four starting lineup changes for
a knockout match. “Four changes in a knockout game, a game which matters?
Would you not have gone with a tried and tested?” he questioned.
While acknowledging that Bafana started dominantly, Truter argued the
tactical switch ultimately backfired. “The first 20 minutes it worked… but
that’s normally the moment the opponent figures out what is happening. After
that, we were on level footing and we started losing grip of the game.”
Analysts suggested Broos changed systems to match Cameroon’s 3-4-3 setup.
Truter strongly disagreed with this reactive approach. “Why do you want to
match, if you’re dominant and people fear you? It’s about the opponent
changing for you… We created this monster that was unstoppable, so now you
want to match somebody? No, they must come and match you.”
He concluded that reverting to the familiar 4-4-2 formation came too late to
salvage the game. “The first 20 minutes we were dominant. That’s when they
faked an injury, they had a discussion, figured it out and then we lost
control of the game slowly but surely, until we reverted back to 4-4-2 which
was too late.”
