The retired defender has called for patience with the national side, but says the team must work hard on defending set-pieces
Despite admitting South Africa are not having their best African Cup of Nations finals in Egypt, retired defender Themba Mnguni has called for patience with the team.
The former Bafana Bafana defender was part of the 1998 Afcon squad which managed to reach the final, and said bad things can happen to any football team in the world.
“It was a scrappy game last night [against Morocco] and it happened when we just wanted a draw. We were good defensively, but I cannot be happy with our attack, we were unfortunate to concede from a set-piece,” Mnguni told Goal.
“It was just bad luck for us to concede from a set-piece right on the edge of the box and we failed to defend, we could not deal with the second ball and that really hurt us. Basically, we are not having a good tournament in Egypt.”
Speaking about cricism Bafana have received for their lackluster displays, where they didn’t look threatening whilst looking like a defensive side, ‘The Rock’ believes they could have beaten Cote d’Ivoire.
“Yeah if you look at the game against Ivory Coast, we should have won that one I am still convinced and we would have beaten Namibia convincingly,” rued the Mamelodi Sundowns legend.
“However, I think we decided to prioritise games and said we can beat Namibia and possibly get draws against the Ivorians and Morocco but that didn’t happen.
“I knew Morocco was not going to be an easy opponent and I think we failed to trouble the Ivorians on an open play but there was an improvement against Namibia as we also scored.
“Coming back to last night’s game, Morocco was going to be a challenge because they have experienced players, yes we also have good players with massive experience, but we didn’t look sharp and to be frank. Our football hasn’t been good recently but I believe things will change for the best with time.
“This is football and these things happen to any country or team in the world. We just need to find the right methods to win our games when it matters the most.”
With coach Stuart Baxter’s men having finished third in Group D with three points, they could still advance to the Round of 16 as one of the four best third-placed teams, depending on what happens in Tuesday’s final group stage matches.
“It wouldn’t work for us if we had that mentality that teams will do us favours because yesterday’s result didn’t help us. We should have created chances against Morocco and forget about playing for a draw,” he continued.
“The Ivorians were too strong for Namibia and now we have to wait and cross our fingers. We also knew that the Ivoirians would not want anything other than a win because their coach (Herve Renard) wanted to prove a point. We read stories that he is not cheap and so on.
“Other than that, I think we tried to match them pound for pound but I am not happy because we didn’t create enough chances. We conceded on a set-piece, we need to work on avoiding conceding such goals.”
“That has been our downfall at Afcon and fighting for the second ball has not been 100% so far. However, I have faith that we will improve with time.
“Let’s use this tournament as preparation for the next World Cup and admit that things didn’t go well for us. We have the best team especially the one that played last night, it’s young and if we keep them together, we will definitely go far.”
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