Bafana Bafana squad: Broos on why he omitted Hlongwane & Blom

Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has explained his decision to exclude USA-based players Bongokuhle Hlongwane and Njabulo Blom from the recently announced 23-man squad.

The Belgian coach revealed the final squad on Thursday for the upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Nigeria [away on 7 June] and Zimbabwe [home on 11 June 11] at Free State Stadium.

Broos cited two key reasons for overlooking St. Louis City midfielder Blom and Minnesota United forward Hlongwane. Firstly, he highlighted their lack of regular starting positions with their respective clubs.

Secondly, the coach emphasised the logistical challenges faced by players based in the USA.

Due to long travel times and matches played on Sundays, these players often arrive in South Africa late and exhausted and have limited time to train before matches.

WHY HUGO BROOS OVERLOOKED BLOM AND BONGOKUHLE HLONGWANE

“Hlongwane is not a standard player anymore in his team, he’s just always on the bench,” said Broos.

“He’s always coming on in the last 20 minutes or something.

“And the second reason is the experience of players who are coming from America is not so good. They arrive here exhausted, they travel two days, they never arrive on time because they play most of the time on Sunday.

“They arrive most of the time on Tuesday, exhausted because of the long travel.

“Then we give them a day off on Wednesday because they have to recover and then on Friday they have to play a game. That’s a problem, that’s not a problem of the player or me.

“That’s a problem of the medical that he is so far away. But if Hlongwane can return to being a standard player, maybe you can think otherwise but he is not a standard player anymore, it’s the same thing for Blom.”

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