Hugo Broos stresses importance of making up lost ground

The Belgian mentor’s initial target from these first two matches was to get six points and go into next month’s double header against Congo in pole position in Group K.

Ahead of the Bright Stars fixture in Juba on Tuesday, he still feels all is not lost, as he looks for more match sharpness after the Uganda stalemate.

"The points are a deception hey. Yeah, I'm disappointed that we only have a point, but we have [at least] a point. Now it's more [important] that we have to win in South Sudan on Tuesday," said Broos.

"[Against Uganda] I wanted to see from everybody what I saw when it was 2-1, and we discussed it before the game on whether to put the players who have more competitive games or do we go with players who know the automatism in the team.

"So it was a choice we made, and the moment we had to [react], we put the players who are maybe a little sharper, and Thalente [Mbatha, the equalising goal scorer] was one of those players."

After Veli Mothwa’s costly mistake last night, Sipho Chaine could be the favourite to make his international debut in Juba next week.

"It's not a nice thing for any keeper to make such a mistake and, as a keeper, you know what you did wrong and we could have lost the game with that [error]," he added.

"So I will see how he is in the next days, but if I feel he's not really ready to play that game on Tuesday then I can't put him because the risk is there that he will make a mistake again.

"So, for a keeper, it's even more important than for an outfield player, that he's mentally good because sometimes a keeper has to do two things [in the whole game] – like [against Uganda] he had to do virtually nothing.

"But for the one, or two, or three things he had to do, there was one mistake and that is not a happy thing for a goalkeeper, so we will see how he is in the next days before Tuesday."

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