Vela Khumalo laments Bafana Bafana COSAFA Cup opening

The locally based national senior men's team suffered a 1-0 defeat to Mozambique in the opening encounter of the regional tournament hosted in Bloemfontein.

Despite enjoying the bulk of possession, Khumalo was left frustrated by a lack of finishing as The Mambas handed the hosts a sucker punch against the run of play.

"This result is not the best way to start the tournament. Performance-wise, I thought we played well, and we played the way we wanted to play, but we have to improve on converting our chances.

"In the first part of the game, we had so many chances and made so many entries into the Mozambican box, but we did not convert the chances. We were rushing our goal-scoring moments, and we were punished on transition," said the disappointed coach.  

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The SA U17 Men's national team coach drew similarities from his young charges to the current senior team's struggles in identifying opportunities to transition from possession-based build-up play to penetrating the opposition’s goal.

Khumalo also touched on their objectives for this tournament, one of which they unfortunately failed at in the opening game, but he's optimistic they can bounce back.

"If one goes back to our rubric to see what our objectives are for this competition, one of those objectives was not to concede a goal. We said we did not want to concede for the rest of the tournament, but we still played the way we wanted to play, we just couldn't finish our chances," stated Khumalo. 

With South Africa yet to implement the Video Assistant Referee technology in the domestic game, the Kaizer Chiefs reserve team mentor also shared his takeaways after several interventions during the Bafana-Mozambique match.

"Let me first acknowledge that VAR is good and necessary, however, the intervention of VAR kills the momentum of the game, and at times, the officials were taking far too long to make a decision, but it is a good thing," clarified the interim head coach. 

Bafana next Group A fixture will see them take on Zimbabwe at Free State Stadium on Saturday at 15:00. Catch the action LIVE on SABC Sport.