South Africa Under-17 national team coach Vela Khumalo expressed displeasure with the score margin following his team’s 7-nil loss at the hands of Zambia at the Ongoing 2019 COSAFA Under-17 Men’s Championships in Malawi but feels the tournament is a learning curve for his team.
Speaking in a Post-Match interview after the match, Khumalo said his boys could have done better and he is not happy with the scoreline.
“I am actually not happy with the score margin we could have done better.
We conceded 7 goals and as a coach, you cannot be happy about it even though you know that you are playing a team that was assembled for a very long time when we only had one session to prepare and come to the tournament. That’s not an excuse though,” he said.
“We had our plans too but what really killed us was conceding a goal in the early stages of the game. When you play with the small boys as soon as they concede a goal it becomes a problem to say now what are we going to do, what is the next movement they are losing the tactical approach which we had. But I can say Congratulations to Zambia they stuck to their plans,” he added.
He also said that playing a team like Zambia which has been in camp for a long period was always going to be hard for his side who just had a short time in their training camp but he feels it’s a learning curve for them ahead of next year’s tournament.
“We were playing a very good team, they have been in the camp since May and it’s a very long preparation and with us it’s just a week camp so you would think that from what we have selected as a coach, you don’t know that you are playing a team which has been in the camp for so long and we only assembled the boys on the 2nd October, you really need to go back and prepare. However, it is a learning curve for us as I have been saying we are preparing for next year. We are going to have a different team with the same players next year but a different approach because they would have known how a tournament is.”
He went on to say that this is the best time for his team to start preparing for next year’s tournament.
“I think this is the best time for us, that we are preparing now for next year so we need more games like this so that we can prepare better.”
South Africa and Eswatini will battle it out tomorrow in their last group game at Kamuzu Stadium with the Latter needing a win to advance to the semi-finals and could go through at the expense of Malawi on Head-to-Head even if The Young Flames register a win over the Junior Chipolopolo at Mpira Stadium with both matches Kicking-Off Simultaneously at 14:00hrs.
7-0!! That’s too much. The boys are playing at another level….