Bafana Bafana sealed their Cosafa final ticket on Friday evening when they beat Comoros 3-1 in the second semi-final staged at the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein.
Mohamed Idris turned Kamogelo Sebelebele's dangerous cutback into his own net to give South Africa a deserved lead in the eighth minute before Orlando Pirates striker Boitumelo Radiopane doubled the advantage six minutes later. Madi Ibrahim halved the deficit in the 30th minute before Sebelebele sealed the win later in the second half.
The win ensured the hosts set up a final against the defending champions, Angola, on Sunday at the same venue.
Coach Vela Khumalo, who doubles up as Kaizer Chiefs‘ reserve team coach, has since explained how he managed to tame his opponents.
‘We said let's have a quick goal'
“I think we were crystal clear about how we wanted to approach the game. We said we were going to play with the two-tenths, with one top man, and we wanted an early goal to unsettle them and open them,” Khumalo told the media.
“If you look at the teams that we have been playing against, they sit back and then they will catch us on set-play and standard situations. So in this case, what we said was that: let’s have a quick goal. Let’s unsettle them. Let’s play the ball behind them, but let’s draw them in because they were men markers.
“So we said let’s have the two tenths to draw them in, and then we will punch up with the striker, and it has worked for us. I’m happy that we scored the goals that we needed this time around. Coming back, we said let’s set out traps because they want to build up from the back, which they are not used to doing. So we said, let’s set up a trap. But we needed to get another goal as soon as possible, just so that we could open them up, and we did exactly that.
“Getting three goals then, at least the gap was two. But we played a high-intensity game and I’m proud of the boys,” Khumalo concluded.
