Bafana loss a bitter pill for Khumalo

by Staff Reporter

Thursday Jun 05, 2025. 15:00

Bafana Bafana’s COSAFA Cup head coach Vela Khumalo expressed his disappointment in his side’s start to the tournament.

South Africa fell to Mozambique in the opening game of the 2025 COSAFA Cup in Bloemfontein on Wednesday, as António Augusto Sumbane scored against the run of play in the 74th minute.

Bafana Bafana had chances of their own but could not find the back of the net, which the South African U17 head coach highlighted as an issue his side needs to overcome.

“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,” said Khumalo.

“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,” he said.

Despite the loss and failure to achieve one of his goals for the tournament, Khumalo was pleased with his side’s style of play and is optimistic about their improvement going forward in the tournament.

“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.

Bafana Bafana will face Zimbabwe at 3pm on Saturday in their second game of the tournament, while Mozambique will face Mauritius at 12pm on the same day.

By Nic Gleeson