Coach: Attitude great but we were sloppy

Tshepo Ntsoelengoe

Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter (right) praised his team’s attitude after they reached the final round of the Chan qualifiers following a 1-0 victory over Botswana at the Moruleng Stadium last Saturday.

Baxter’s men won 3-0 on aggregate, having won the first leg 2-0 in Botswana two weeks ago.

“I was pleased with their attitude early on to embrace the game plan, work with a different sys- tem, and play really well. I didn’t like our last 20 minutes, I think it was sloppy, I thought we switched off mentally.

“Maybe the boys thought Botswana were not going to score four goals and that affected our concentration.

“We gave the ball away far too much and we were not effective. So I would give them 9/10 – that last 1/10 they lose out on because they could not focus for the last 20 minutes,” said the new Bafana mentor.

The national senior men’s team will now face Zambia in the final round of the qualifiers after Chipolopolo beat Swaziland.

Coming up against Zambia, Baxter says he is more likely to select a team filled with youngsters as he did with the games against Botswana.

However, he knows that the Zambians will be a good challenge for his players, something he says his players need.

“We know Zambia did well in the Under-20 World Cup, we know they have a successful squad going and we know that if we can pick the same sort of squad we (South Africa) will be a massive challenge for them but that’s the sort of experience we want to get into their boots – you can’t buy that and you can’t get it at club level.

“We want some of these players to go in and represent us again but we have to look at it like the Germans who sent their young squad to the Fifa Confederations Cup,” said Baxter.

Bafana will host the Zambians in the second week of August, before travelling to Zambia for the second leg a week later.