Broos Breaks Silence On Centre-Back Criteria

Ime Okon and Khulumani Ndamane of South Africa. Photo: Daniel Hlongwane / Gallo Images.

With at least six centre-backs competing to make the Bafana final World Cup squad, head coach Hugo Broos has revealed what the crucial criteria for making the national team look like.

The emergence of Ime Okon has added competition for places in the Bafana squad, after he was included and played 90 minutes in both warm-up friendlies against Panama in March.

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Okon got his chance to show Broos what he’s got after Siyabonga Ngezana was ruled out by injury.

Another centre-back likely to give the Belgian coach a selection headache is Grant Kekana, who was surprisingly omitted from the Africa Cup of Nations squad, after he initially formed the core of the team that clinched a bronze medal at the AFCON in the Ivory Coast.

At the continental tournament, in addition to Ngezana, Broos selected Mbekezeli Mbokazi, Nkosinathi Sibisi and Khulumani Ndamane.

Broos Reveals Centre-Back Criteria

The 74-year-old has suggested that height is a big factor when selecting centre-backs in today’s football.

“If you need to play at the highest level, you need power, you need physicality, you need many more things than only technique, and that is something we looked at in the beginning. We had small players, South Africa is not a big race, they are small people,” Broos explained on 947’s MSW.

“We were looking for guys of 1,85 meters. We played against Nigeria in the qualifiers, and the shortest guy on the pitch was 1,83 meters – the shortest, so in football you need big guys, 20 or 30 years ago the big guys couldn’t run, but now they are athletes.

“Football has evolved in the physical side. This is something we looked at for the players we searched for, because a central defender has to be a big guy or somebody good with the head or someone talented as Mbokazi, he’s not the biggest, but he’s a very good talent,” Broos said.

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Kekana and Sibisi are two of the shortest centre-back defenders alongside Mbokazi, with the height of 1,79m and 1,77m respectively. The Chicago Fire defender is also 1,77 meters tall, like the Pirates defender.

The tallest centre-backs are Ngezana at 1,88m, followed by Okon (1,87m) and Ndamane (1,83 m).

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