Bafana Bafana stand-in coach Morena Ramoreboli has reacted to his side's third-placed finish at this year's Cosafa Cup.
The South African men's football team overcame Malawi on penalties after the match ended goalless and claimed the bronze medal for just the second time in their history.
Ramoreboli, who won the competition with Bafana back in 2021, could not repeat this feat this time around after bowing out at the semifinals stage to eventual champions Zambia.
The experienced mentor expressed that although he was proud of his players for overcoming numerous challenges, he still felt their final positioning could have been better.
“Credit to the team, the association and the technical team, we did our best despite all the challenges we had during our preparation but I’m happy with what we did today and getting third spot but we could have done better,” he told the media.
He further explained: “The lesson from this is nothing beats preparation, we tried our level best with all the challenges so we had to push these boys towards the right direction, and we’re happy about taking third spot but it is not a true reflection of how hard we worked.”
Ramoreboli made a total of six changes to his side that lost to Chipolopolo in the semis, handing senior debuts to the likes of teenagers Puso Dithejane, Siyabonga Gumede as well as Genino Palace.
The wiry tactician expressed great satisfaction in some of the individual performances and jotted down a few takeaways from his side’s participation this year.
“The boys responded so well, some of them played for the first time today and they did well so I’m happy with the effort and also so much has happened for us and we’ve gained many lessons as well and I’m happy about all of the lessons we’ve learnt in this tournament,” he revealed.
“The lesson from this is nothing beats preparation, we tried our level best with all the challenges so we had to push these boys towards the right direction, and we’re happy about taking third spot but it is not a true reflection of how hard we worked.”
Ramoreboli also reserved special praise for second choice goalkeeper in the competition Zolwethu Mzimela for making several stunning saves and playing a vital role in winning the penalty shootout.
“Mzimela in goal, the future of South African football. The boy is good, he is so good. Very, very confident. If you look at what he did when they were going for the fourth penalty. You could see how confident he was, he knew this was the penalty to take and he did exactly that,” he said.
IOL Sport