South Africa head coach Hugo Broos has blamed their penalty miss as the reason why they lost their 2023 Africa Cup of Nations opener against Mali.
South Africa went 2-0 down in the game but had won a penalty earlier where Pacy Tau blazed his effort wide an incident that Broos feels determined their fate.
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“The performance of South Africa was good, and I think if we scored the penalty, we would have been good,” Broos is quoted by CAF. “They were more physical than the first half. This was the major difference. We lost a lot of balls and mostly because the physical conditioning of Mali was better than us. So this is the difference and this is where Mali was able to change the game, not at the football playing level” said Broos.
“The coach of Mali saw what he had to do, and they were stronger on duels in the second half and we couldn’t play our game anymore. We lost the ball where we shouldn’t have lost it but then again, I think the performance was good but just not good enough.”
Up next for the South Africans is a Southern African tie with their high in confidence neighbors, Namibia who secured a historic 1-0 victory over Tunisia in the earlier kickoff.
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