South Africa’s national team coach has admitted that he turned down an offer to play Algeria in a friendly match because he feared criticism if his side had lost that game.

The South African Football Association received an invitation from the North Africans to play in an international friendly match during the upcoming Fifa break.

Broos turned down the opportunity to take on the 2019 Afcon champions, who were hoping to play the match at the new Baraki Stadium in Algiers. The tour was going to be an all-expenses paid trip from the hosting federation.

Bafana will now face Mozambique and Angola instead.

Explaining why he refused to play in Algeria, the gaffer cited an exhausting journey across the continent, and he  felt the north Africans are not an ideal opponent for Bafana at this stage.

“I refused because I didn’t want to travel 24 hours, and that’s the problem here in Africa. When you want to travel, you need one day, and you have to wait from airports to connect to another plane. We did it enough – we went to France, we went to Morocco, so I didn’t want to have again an opponent where we have to travel 24 hours,” Broos explained to SABC Sports.

“Secondly, I think it’s not the moment to play against a team like Algeria. They are better than we for this moment, so maybe some guys are disappointed now because they were ready to criticize again if we lost against Algeria. I’m a little bit smarter now than a few months ago.”