Johannesburg – Following a comfortable 3-0 win over Mauritius in their African Nations Championships (Chan) first-leg qualifier, Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba says their opponents were far from intimidating.
“I don’t think one can rate them as a team that would scare us,” said Mashaba after the match at the Dobsonville Stadium, on Saturday.
“Even if we go out and play them in Mauritius I don’t think there will be any danger with them.”
A three goal blitz in the first half, orchestrated by Siphelele Ntshangase with two goals helped the home side dominate their opponents.
After Mashaba’s side had gone without a goal in three successive matches, they have now notched up five goals in the space of a week following their 2-1 friendly win over Angola on Tuesday in Cape Town.
“I think we played according to the plan. It’s always a problem against people who come for a draw and park the bus,” said Mashaba.
“That means we still work on our players’ match intelligence. We need to know how to dismantle a team like this. At some stages we were playing right into their hands, we were going where they parked the bus, rather than stretch them going on the wings and scoring goals.”
While Mashaba used a number of young players to field a full match-day squad after the side had been ravaged by player withdrawals. Despite the resounding scoreline, Mashaba said the national team was not the place to blood young players in top level football.
“At club level players should be exposed to these kind of things. As soon they come to the national then they’ll be ready. If you look at the youngsters we brought in today they did very well,” said Mashaba. – ANA