Pitso Mosimane Returns as Bafana Bafana Head Coach
Pitso Mosimane returns as Bafana Bafana head coach, a decade after his first spell in charge, with South African football once again turning to its most decorated modern tactician.
The 62-year-old has been reappointed as boss of the men’s national team, replacing Hugo Broos, whose five-year tenure ended when his contract expired at the end of July.
Broos leaves a solid footprint. The Belgian guided South Africa to a third-place finish at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations and steered Bafana Bafana into the last 32 of this year’s World Cup, their first appearance at the finals since hosting the tournament in 2010. That run restored pride and credibility. Now Mosimane is tasked with turning that into something more permanent.
His return was signed off by the South African Football Association’s executive committee on 8 August. The former Mamelodi Sundowns coach was only unveiled in Johannesburg on Tuesday, once his contract details and technical team had been finalised. SAFA has not disclosed the length of his deal, a deliberate veil over how long this second chapter is expected to run.
For Mosimane, it is familiar territory loaded with unfinished business.
He previously led Bafana Bafana from July 2010 to June 2012, a period remembered as much for a painful administrative blunder as for any tactical work. South Africa failed to qualify for the 2012 Afcon after misreading the qualification rules and playing for a draw in their final group game against Sierra Leone, believing a point would be enough. It was not. The fallout was brutal and enduring.
The end came shortly after. In June 2012, a 1-1 home draw against Ethiopia in their opening qualifier for the 2014 World Cup brought his tenure to a close. He left with questions hanging over his international record and whether his ideas were better suited to club football.
He answered that emphatically.
Mosimane rebuilt his reputation and then some, turning Mamelodi Sundowns into a continental powerhouse and later winning the African Champions League with both Sundowns and Egyptian giants Al Ahly, lifting the trophy three times in total. His name became synonymous with African club success, tactical detail and relentless standards.
That surge took him beyond the continent’s borders. In recent years he has worked in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Iran, broadening his experience and adding new layers to an already sharp coaching profile.
Now he walks back into a national team set-up that looks very different from the one he left. Bafana Bafana arrive from a World Cup last-32 run and a podium finish at Afcon, with expectations rising again after years of drift.
Mosimane returns older, more decorated, and carrying the weight of both his past and South Africa’s ambitions. The question is no longer whether he can win on the continent. It is whether he can finally turn that club dominance into a sustained international era for Bafana Bafana.
