Hugo Broos wasn’t happy with Bafana Bafana‘s performance despite winning 3-2 in South Sudan, admitting his side played into the hands of the hosts’ tall players.
South Africa again left it late to snatch points – this time all three – after Thalente Mbatha scored the 95th minute winner away from home against South Sudan in a five-goal thriller.
The 2023 AFCON semi-finalists had all to play for after being held to 2-2 draw by Uganda in the opening match, but again struggled, and the Belgian mentor felt they didn’t play well.
“I don’t agree with you, I don’t think South Sudan played better than Uganda but we didn’t play so well today, that was the problem,” Broos told the media in South Sudan.
“We started very hesitant for the first 15 minutes and the goal was scored, but you could expect we were not in the game. After that we came into the game, we had chances and you have to score. If you don’t score, even when it’s 2-1, the belief in the other team is still there.
“And in the second half you’re going to play on your 16-meter [box]. I’m very sorry, I don’t want to blame or whatsoever but we played against Basketball players – five, six players of two meters tall. If you are going to play on the 16, you ask for trouble because all the long balls comes. And then you receive a goal and then it’s double difficult to win the game.
“So again, I think the good Lord upstairs is with us in those two games, also against Uganda. But we played better against Uganda, today we didn’t play our best game, and we should’ve done better.
“If we should’ve done better, I think the score shouldn’t have been 3-2 but maybe 5-2 or something for South Africa.”
