South Africa coach Hugo Broos is edging closer to the record for the most number of games in charge but if Saturday’s proposed friendly against Jamaica in Puebla turns out to only be a training game then he will not break the record.
Broos has already said he will leave the Bafana Bafana job after the World Cup, meaning he has a minimum of four games left in charge if you include the Jamaica clash.
But the game might not count as a proper international as the coach wants to use it for training purposes and asked that it be played behind closed doors. It remains to be seen whether FIFA recognise it as a full international and consider it for their rankings.
Four fixtures would take Broos to 59 games in charge of the side, one more than Ephraim ‘Shakes Mashaba’, who is the record holder for the most matches as Bafana coach.
Should the side advance out of their group at the World Cup, Broos can add to that number.
Broos’s 55 games in charge to date have yielded 26 wins, 21 draws and eight defeats, with 80 goals scored and 44 conceded. He has been at the helm for five years, since his appointment in May 2021.
It is the second-longest spell he has spent in charge of a team during his 38-year managerial career, behind a six-season stint with Club Brugge between 1991 and 1997.
Bafana have in fact played 90 matches during those five years, but 35 of those were either in the COSAFA Cup, African Nations Championship or friendlies for which Broos was not in the dugout.
SAFA credit him with being in charge of the first of those, a friendly against Uganda in June 2021, when he was in fact still in Belgium some 9 000 kilometres away.
Broos already holds the record for the longest tenure as Bafana coach.
The late Clive Barker previously held the record at three years and eight months.
Broos’s potential final four matches in charge are against Jamaica, before Bafana play in the opening game of the 2026 World Cup against co-hosts Mexico in Mexico City on June 11, and then face the Czech Republic in Atlanta (June 18) and South Korea in Monterrey (June 24).
MOST GAMES IN CHARGE OF BAFANA BAFANA
Shakes Mashaba: P58 W32 D21 L5 GF94 GA40
Hugo Broos: P55 W26 D21 L8 GF80 GA44
Stuart Baxter: P52 W23 D13 L16 GF78 GA58
Clive Barker: P43 W22 D9 L12 GF57 GA38
Carlos Alberto Parreira: P36 W16 D13 L7 GF49 GA25
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