Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos feels that he should have been informed early about the unavailability of Orlando Pirates midfielder Patrick Maswanganyi who is injured.
The 26-year-old played a part in the 0-0 Betway Premiership draw with Stellenbosch but was left out of the Pirates squad for the 2-1 win over Mamelodi Sundowns at the weekend.
South Africa play Lesotho at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on Friday before jetting off to the Ivory Coast to face Benin.
Maswanganyi, who scored in recent Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against both Uganda and South Sudan, has since been replaced by Polokwane City midfielder Rodney Maphangule.
When asked about the situation, Broos explained that he should have been informed of the injury when it happened and not a full day later.
He said on FARPost: ‘If my information is right, he was injured on Saturday already at training or something. So everybody knew that Patrick was with the national team. I thought at that moment they would call and say look, ‘Maswanganyi is injured and can’t play tomorrow [Sunday]. He can’t be in the camp’.
“That gives us more time to look for another player. So this morning, with all the other problems, we had to call him [Rodney Maphangule], and we are lucky that he is staying here in Polokwane. Imagine if he was coming from Chippa or whatever. That we had to wait, that means he would only arrive tomorrow here [in Polokwane].
“So yeah, a little bit more occupied with the fact that your player can play, injured or not injured, just give the information. You don’t have to call me. Call the [SAFA] team doctor [Thulani Ngwenya] and say, ‘Look, there is a problem with Patrick. He is not ready for the camp, okay?’
“But then we have to wait and wait. Last night at 20:00, I received a call from the team saying Patrick was injured.
“We don’t know, so just give information. What’s wrong with giving information to the team doctor? If they don’t want to give it to me, call the team doctor. It’s so easy, and it helps us a lot when we know it at the right moment.”