Lyle Foster formed part of Burnley’s small group that started their pre-season drills on Monday, providing some insight into his absence for Bafana Bafana.
LYLE Foster formed part of Burnley’s small group that started their pre-season drills on Monday, providing some insight into his absence for Bafana Bafana.
Two weeks ago, Bafana coach Hugo Broos announced his 34-player preliminary squad that will face Morocco in their final 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier at FNB Stadium next Saturday.
And while the match will serve as a dead rubber, with the tow teams having already qualified for the tournament next year in Ivory Coast, Broos named a relatively strong squad.
This includes a host of South African-based players such as Themba Zwane, Miguel Timm and Monnapule Saleng, who had impressive seasons, and overseas-based personnel like Al Ahly’s Percy Tau.
With the SA-based and some overseas-based players having assembled for a pre-camp which started last Wednesday and set to end on Wednesday, Broos will announce his final squad on Thursday.
However, the most notable absentee from his preliminary squad was Foster, who joined Burnley in January before the club earned promotion back to the English Premier League.
The Clarets are taking their return to the English top flight seriously and coach Vincent Kompany is already hard at work, starting pre-season work with some of the players who didn’t report for international duty this month.
And one of the players that was spotted for their first day of pre-season training at Turf Moor on Monday was Bafana’s striker Foster who didn’t report for international duty.
While Foster could be a huge miss for Bafana’s clash against the World Cup semi-finalists, it seems his club boss and Broos had a gentlemen’s agreement for him to remain abroad.
The two Belgians go way back, with Broos having given Kompany his big break at Anderlecht when he was just 17.
Speaking on Foster’s integration at Burnley in March, Broos said he was looking forward to seeing his adaptation at the club even though he was yet to make contact with Kompany at the time.
“I haven’t spoken with Kompany until now. Let him first adapt there, then I’ll see how he progresses. If there’s a problem or something, then I’ll call Kompany because I know him very well,” Broos said.
“I put him (Kompany) in the first team at Anderlecht when he was 17 years old. I know him very well. But it’s not the time for that. There’s nothing that’s problematic at the moment.”
