Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba has said that it was unfortunate that his men did not hold on, to record a famous victory against Nigeria in their last Africa Cup of Nations qualifying game.
Mashaba saw his men go two goals up at the Akwa Ibom International Stadium, before Hull City striker Sone Aluko scored a late brace to salvage a point for the hosts.
The draw was not enough to see the African champions through to Equatorial Guinea 2015.
“It’s so unfortunate but that is football for you. It is a competition and everybody wants the points and it would have been good for us to have won the game ending the series with a good number of points but unfortunately we didn’t do that,” Mashaba said.
“We lost the game in the last five minutes and we will go back and see what went wrong but on a more serious note, my boys did very well.
“The Nigerian side are a good team too because you can see their tactical awareness and their match intelligence but unfortunately, my boys were able to stop them.”
Mashaba also admitted that the sending off of midfielder Reneilwe Letsholonyane, disrupted his team’s play, but insisted they could have still scored a third goal.
He said: “The red card we got disorganized us because the moment that happened, we lost shape and that was what led us to crowding the area. Even at that, we should have taken the game to them.
“We had two breaks and could have made it three goals against the Super Eagles but we were unlucky. Anyway, that is how the game goes.”
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