Bafana Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki refused to fault the efforts of his charges as he looked to explain how Ghana walked away victorious in their 2021 AFCON qualifier.
Bafana went down 2-0 to the Black Stars in their opening Group C Africa Cup of Nations qualifier at Cape Coast Stadium on Thursday evening, and find themselves lagging behind in third position in the group, after Sudan romped to a 4-0 win over Sao Tome and Principe.
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Ntseki gave a reflection of the 90 minutes in his post-match interview, and admitted having started the match too slowly, though defended that the hosts were "fortunate" to have scored the two goals through no fault of his own players.
"We started a bit slow, towards the second quarter of the match we started making combinations and started enjoying the game, opening up," said Ntseki post-match.
"But they had a very compact defence. Every time when we wanted to attack through the middle, they were very compact, and as a result we ended up conceding on a transition.
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"I think our positioning was not that bad, apart from the ball that was played through the legs of a player [by Thomas Partey for his goal]. But I think this was a very good match.
"We are disappointed that we lost, it would have been better maybe if we had drawn, because we came here with a draw [before the match started].
"Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for Ghana, they scored the two goals and if you saw how they were scored – it was more of power and strength, putting pressure on the ball and then getting the second goal.
"I think credit must be given to the players because I can't fault their effort. They did all they had to do, unfortunately it was not our day."
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