Hugo Broos relieved to avoid Morocco AFCON qualification decider

South Africa overcame the pessimism that followed last Friday's shock 2-2 draw at home to the Lone Stars, after they let slip a two-goal half-time lead to set up a dramatic away fixture in Monrovia last night.

With many doomsayers predicting yet another failed AFCON qualification campaign ahead of the game, Broos admits it was a huge relief to get over the line without having to rely on Morocco to decide their fate.

Here's what the Belgian tactician told the SAFA media officer after the match.

"I'm not saying that it would be voluntary but it could be that in June, Morocco is coming to South Africa with a good team, and in September that they are already prepared for the Afcon and they have a team with less quality. Now for us, this will be a very good friendly game, even though it's a qualifier but it will be a good friendly game because the result is not important. But again, we will try to prepare the team and be ready in January for the Afcon in Ivory Coast," he said.

Broos had made changes, bringing in six new faces to his starting line-up from the previous encounter last Friday – including full-backs Innocent Maela and Nyiko Mobbie as well as midfield anchor man Sphephelo Sitole, and felt this was key to the match outcome.

"It's difficult to express my feelings, 100 feelings are going through my body right now. It was a very tough game, we knew the style of Liberia is power play, it's long balls to the front, headers, and powerful duels. Therefore, we changed some powerful players in the team and added powerful players also like Maela, Sitole and I think that was a good decision," he added.

One change, in particular, paid dividends last night – Orlando Pirates striker Zakhele Lepasa, who is on loan to SuperSport United until the end of this season, came in and scored a crucial goal in the 19th minute to get Bafana on their way.

"Zakhele is a guy who runs 90 minutes. He scored a fantastic goal, he was very quick and he was always there throughout the game, he was present. That's why we changed Zakhele and also, I have to say that (Foster) Lyle wasn't feeling well this morning and we couldn't take a risk because we knew that we needed players who were 100 percent. Again, I think the decision was right," he concluded.