Bafana Bafana head coach Pitso Mosimane has opened up on the return of defender Mbekezeli Mbokazi to the national team ahead of their double header with Kenya.
Mbokazi had missed the previous international break and Mosimane’s three wins in the first games of his second reign as national team coach.
With Mbokazi now back, Mosimane has praised the defender and explained that the Major Soccer League players all had long travels and need to adjust to time difference and/or jetlag.
“A good boy, a good player, he wants to play. A good mentality, good energy from what I saw on the games,” he stated.
“The MLS players they traveled for one-and-a-half days to be here and time differences, we don’t adjust our time to their time, because we are a group and they just come in and gel in proper.
“The MLS boys are focussed, they show they come from a good environment and most of them that we brought back [into the squad] went to the World Cup.
“It’s important for me also to show them respect to be part of the group without compromising what’s been happening because that’s more important.”
‘We’re only as good as our last game’
Mosimane explained that he recalled several players who were part of Hugo Broos’ World Cup squad but missed his first camp because they’ve shown their quality for the national side before.
“We are as good as our last game, I think you know that,” he continued.
“We need to keep the momentum going after the results. In the national team we never have the same players easily back.
“We have injuries, we have Thapelo [Morena] out injured, we got Thalente [Mbatha] back from injury so we also had to give him the opportunity to be with this group because there was never a problem when he was around – so are the others, Lyle [Foster], Mbokazi, all the guys who played well in the World Cup, so we need to give them an opportunity.
“Everyone knows, as I said you’re only as good as the last game, if you are injured you need to have somebody to play in your position and we also need to encourage who come and play. Yes, the quality might not be the same, but we have a country to choose from.”