SA coach seeks revenge after shock Lesotho defeat

SA coach seeks revenge after shock Lesotho defeat
David Notoane, coach of South Africa

by Staff Reporter

Tuesday Jul 30, 2019. 17:00

South Africa’s CHAN team coach David Notoane is confident that his side will turn around the tie in the second leg which will take place at Dobsonville Stadium on Sunday.


South Africa, fielding mostly youngsters with hardly any international experience, narrowly lost 3-2 to a full-strength senior Lesotho side at Setsoto Stadium on Sunday and Notoane believes the second leg at home will be a different ball game altogether.


Notoane, who is also the South Africa under-23 coach, said he will definitely be strengthening areas which he thought were not tight enough in the first leg.


“Disappointed because you always want to win as a coach, so I think we could have come away with a 2-2 draw. To be honest, tough game (against a full strength Lesotho Senior team) but on the balance of where we are in terms of two away goals, it gives us confidence going into the second leg to turn the tie around,” he said.


“We have to look into a few areas; defensively, we gave away two soft goals to be honest – the penalty was soft, the third goal (in the dying minutes) was soft but these are young boys, I hope they learn, we want to see them play senior football. I think Lesotho gave us that sort of a challenge.


Notoane said the team will now have a full week to prepare for the second leg, unlike the short period they had going into the first leg.


“We put in a lot of structure in what we want to do, defensively and offensively because a few days of being together, it was always going to put one on a back foot. You saw towards the end, in the last 20 minutes, the energy levels to some degree, were the difference,” he added.


“They put us under some pressure, so indeed two days of preparations is not ideal but it is not an excuse as well because from the structure we put in place defensively, we spoke about critical phases of the match but concede two goals from the points we had touched on,” he reflected.


“That disappoints one as a coach a little bit because we had touched on those phases and I am not happy about that. The concentration level, the mental toughness has to improve going into the second leg because Lesotho relishes long balls all the time to put you under pressure,” he added.







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