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After Bafana Bafana’s 2-1 victory on penalties against Cape Verde, coach Hugo Broos expressed his honest opinion on the team’s performance.

The Bafana Bafana coach commended his team for their performance against Cape Verde. However, he expressed disappointment over their lack of clinical finishing from the penalty spot. Simultaneously, he lauded goalkeeper Ronwen Williams for his exceptional display in saving four penalties.

“Let’s say six hours ago I was 71, now I’m 75,” Broos told journalists after the match. 

“It was a stressful game, certainly the penalties. You know what happens when you have to take penalties, it’s a very special situation for the players.

“Sometimes you do a little game after training, taking penalties and nearly no player misses a penalty but you see today (Saturday) what happened, not only with us but also the players from Cape Verde,” he added.

“That means, we can be happy, but players want to get a penalty. We were, not lucky because we had a very good keeper today. If you can save four penalties, this is not luck anymore. You can save one, but four, this is not luck.” 

Broos, however, conceded that his team's performance was not stellar, acknowledging that some of his players may have succumbed to pressure.

“Our match was not so good, I think we played the worst game of the tournament of all our games. We played better against Mali, we played better against Namibia, Tunisia, also Morocco,” he continued.

“This was not the team we saw in the previous week. I think for some players it’s a very new experience, and maybe the pressure and the nerves played a role today in the game.

“For Cape Verde, it was maybe different, they had nothing to lose. Even I think they are very sad now, but for us, there was more to lose. And that was in the heads of the players and therefore we didn’t play like we used to do. But ok, I said it already it’s not the way you win [that matters], it’s you win and we won today with penalties. So we are very happy,” Broos concluded.