Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos praised his tactics that caught Nigeria off guard and says it's a pity that his side did not take their chances.
Broos made a surprise change to his line-up and tactics after including centre-back Siyanda Xulu in place of Thapelo Morena and played with three centre-backs against the Super Eagles in the semi-finals.
Bafana looked more comfortable on the ball and created a lot of chances throughout the game.
The Belgian was even more flexible after South Africa went behind midway into the second stanza after they conceded a penalty that was scored by William Troost-Ekong.
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The 71-year-old switched back to a back-four and added another striker, as Mihlali Mayambela replaced Xulu and Zakhele Lepasa came on for Themba Zwane.
The substitutions were effective, as Bafana also won a penalty via a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review after Percy Tau was kicked in the box and Teboho Mokoena equalised from the spot-kick and forced the game to extra-time.
"I think we neutralised Nigeria completely with the way we played, we chose to play with three defenders (centre-backs) because we knew there was a danger with two wingers who play inside, Lookman and (Moses Simon) we had to find solutions for that and the best solution was to put another central defender," Broos explained after the game in a press conference.
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"And I think we succeeded because when you see the dominance we had in the first-half, not only in defending but also in attack, the way we build up, the way we played, I saw the coach of Nigeria (Jose Peseiro) many times doing this (gesturing to players to push back), 'Go back! Go back!' because they were afraid, they could not recover the ball.
"So we played very good, that means the tactical change was good. After the 1-0 we changed, because we had to take risks and okay we could score that goal and everything was good, except two minutes before the end of the 90 minutes, we had three big chances, so we could kill Nigeria then (but) we didn't do it. That's a pity we didn't do it and okay we had the penalties, it's a lottery," he added.
Bafana will be up against Democratic Republic of Congo in the third/fourth play-off match on Saturday evening.