Ivory Coast’s forward #22 Evann Guessand scores during the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) Group F football match between Gabon and Ivory Coast at the Grand Stadium in Marrakech on December 31, 2025. [AFP]
Hugo Broos is hoping to lead South Africa to Cup of Nations glory in Morocco but standing in his team’s way in the last 16 on Sunday are Cameroon, the country with whom he won an unlikely continental title in 2017.
The showdown at the compact Al Medina Stadium in Rabat has the makings of a fascinating contest between a Bafana Bafana side building towards the World Cup and a Cameroon team that entered the AFCON in disarray.
Cameroonian football federation president and Indomitable Lions legend Samuel Eto’o sacked national team coach Marc Brys just weeks before the competition started, replacing him with David Pagou.
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Brys had just overseen a play-off defeat against the Democratic Republic of Congo in the same Rabat stadium to which they will return this weekend.
That ended their hopes of making the World Cup, but they have bounced back so far at the Cup of Nations, winning two and drawing one of three group matches.
Broos, a Belgian compatriot of Brys, knows all about how dangerous Cameroon can be coming into an AFCON tournament to a backdrop of turmoil.
He led a makeshift Indomitable Lions squad, missing some of their biggest names who had refused to accept call-ups, to the title in Gabon in 2017.
They beat Egypt 2-1 in the final to claim their fifth continental crown.
“If you told someone before the tournament we would get to the final they would have laughed, but this for us was a big motivation,” Broos said at the time.
Fast forward nine years and his focus now is on improving on South Africa’s performance at the last Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast in 2024, when they reached the semi-finals and eventually finished third.
Broos, now aged 73, has also led Bafana Bafana to qualification for the upcoming World Cup, their first appearance since hosting the tournament in 2010.
They topped their qualifying section ahead of Nigeria and will face co-hosts Mexico in the opening game on June 11 before also taking on South Korea and a European play-off winner in the group phase.
Before that, a tough path through the Cup of Nations knockout stages awaits South Africa and Broos, whose approach to the competition was marred by allegations of racist and sexist remarks.
The former Belgian international apologised last month after comments made about defender Mbekezeli Mbokazi and the agent who handled the player’s recently-agreed transfer from Orlando Pirates to Chicago Fire.
He is certainly not afraid of speaking out, and criticism of the atmosphere at this Cup of Nations cannot have gone down well with organisers or with the South African president of the Confederation of African Football, Patrice Motsepe.
“I don’t feel the same vibe as what I felt in Ivory Coast and in Gabon,” Broos remarked.
“I don’t know how to explain it but in Ivory Coast and Gabon, every second of the tournament you felt that you were in a tournament.
“When we went with the bus to train, people were waving flags, and here you feel nothing.
“There is no vibe. There is no typical AFCON vibe. I don’t feel it here.”
He has also not been entirely pleased with his team, who needed late goals to beat Angola and Zimbabwe in the group stage, either side of a narrow loss against Egypt.
Broos says they keep “falling asleep after taking leads”, and will expect an improvement against Cameroon.
Remarkably, it will be just the second meeting of the sides at the Cup of Nations — the only previous clash came in their opening group game in 1996, when hosts South Africa triumphed 3-0 on the way to winning the trophy.
Whoever emerges victorious on Sunday will face Morocco in the quarter-finals, provided the hosts get the better of Tanzania in their last-16 tie.