Mosimane wary of Eritrea threat despite Bafana’s ‘good start’
Bafana Bafana head coach Pitso Mosimane has urged his players to remain grounded after their opening result, warning that there is still a long way to go.
Mosimane believes South Africa showed the right mentality but admitted they need to become more clinical in front of goal.
“Good start; but let’s keep our feet on the ground. We don’t have to be too excited; it is only the first game.
“We played well. We are a good team, but there is still a long way to go,” Mosimane said.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t take the chances we created. But we put pressure on and showed we wanted to score. We had many free-kicks and corners. The South African challenge is that we don’t score easily.
“We score two out of six chances, maybe. But we had the right mentality; we wanted to play and fight and press. We created opportunities. You can complain about not scoring, but you cannot complain about not creating.”
Meanwhile, Eritrea coach Hesham Yakan believes his side followed their game plan against Kenya in their opening game.
“It would have been beautiful to get the win. I had prepared for this kind of performance, and we went into the match with a compact defence and playing on the counter-attack,” Yakan told El Match (Sada El Balad).
“The Eritrean national team is newly formed, the players have not played many internationals before, and they do not have experience of these matches.”
Yakan admitted that South Africa will present another major challenge.
“There are professionals in the Eritrean team, but they play in the second, third and fourth tiers in Europe,” added Yakan.
“The next match against South Africa is a very difficult game. But God willing, we will get a good result. We have an excellent goalkeeper.”
The upcoming clash will also make history, with Eritrea and South Africa meeting for the first time ever.
