Mkhalele proud of young Bafana after Plate win

Bafana Bafana assistant coach Helman Mkhalele says he took a risk making eight changes in the COSAFA Cup plate final against Botswana at the Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium on Sunday morning, a decision which almost backfired.

However, with a couple of tweaks early in the second half, the young Bafana team picked up momentum to eventually win 2-1.

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The 52-year-old had to make some tough choices during the game with Bafana struggling to keep up with Botswana, who have been at the COSAFA Cup from the group stages, by substituting debutant Katlego Mashigo.

An ex-Bafana player himself, the coach says the 21-year-old central midfielder based in Northern Ireland can only learn and improve.

œThen coming to my team today I would say we didn™t start well even though we won. I™m happy for the fact that player demonstrated huge amount of character, because we made eight changes of which it™s something that is actually a high risk from my side to do that because in a short space of time playing the amount of games that we played and all of sudden now you make eight changes and it really backfired in the first half but towards the last 15 minutes after we™ve made our changes then we started to our rhythm said Mkhalele.

It proved a good test for a young Bafana side that Mkhalele has said will be the core of the group to play the Olympic qualifiers later this year.

They even adapted to his tactical experiments.

By: Mazola Molefe