Bafana Bafana midfielder Teboho Mokoena says the real Africa Cup of Nations tournament starts now after they sealed their place in the last-16 of the competition.
Mokoena, 28, is widely considered as one of the finest talents in African football at present, a tireless figure in the heart of Hugo Broos’ midfield and central to the success achieved by the senior national team over the past couple of years.
With over 50 caps, he’s only missed one competitive fixture for the national team since Broos took over as head coach close to five years ago and it comes as no surprise to see him stand up as a leader and admit that there’s major room for improvement at AFCON.
South Africa booked their place in the knockout stages with a rollercoaster 3-2 win over Zimbabwe at the Grand Stade Marrakech on Monday.
“We’re happy as a team to go to the next round, I think the real tournament starts now… I think we have to improve, we have conceded so many goals already, so yeah, we need to improve on that, at least we’re scoring, so that’s good,” Mokoena said when asked by iDiski Times about their last-16 qualification in the mixed zone.
While he stated there’s no preference for Cameroon or Ivory Coast, he went on to state that there were nerves when the Warriors netted their second equaliser.
“We got nervous when they scored the second one, but we scored [again] and they put in numbers in front, we panicked a bit, we needed to be more calm on the ball because when we’re in control we play so much better, when you play too many long balls it’s not our game. We need to improve on that and moving forward into the knockout stages.
“That’s why I said the real tournament starts now; it’s going to be tough now but we’re looking forward to it.”
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