South Africa’s AFCON FUTSAL campaign got off to a bad start when the Joao Pinto-coached side lost 4-7 to Mozambique in the opening game at Standard Bank Arena on Friday.
South Africa…………….4
Mozambique………………7
South Africa’s AFCON FUTSAL campaign got off to a bad start when the Joao Pinto-coached side lost 4-7 to Mozambique in the opening game at Standard Bank Arena on Friday.
A hat-trick by captain Ricardo Mendes put the home side on the back foot despite going to the break trailing by a narrow 2-3 scoreline.
South Africa next play Zambia on Sunday afternoon.
The opening game got off to a frantic start when Mendes put Mozambique ahead and Jose da Silva made it 2-0 before Renaldo Donnelly pulled one back for the hosts but again Ricardo Mendes scored the third for the visitors.
Captain Nwashokwe Mashaba made sure the second half was going to be a closely fought contest when he reduced the arrears to 3-2 with a fierce shot at the stroke of half time.
Before South Africa’s second goal, the hosts could have scored two quick goals but were erratic in front of goals.
The trend continued in the second half when Kyle Koert missed a penalty for South Africa which could have brought parity and were soon made to pay dearly for the miss as Mozambique soon made it 4-2 when Amin Claudio fired past goalkeeper Teboho Mofolo.
It was soon 5-2 when Ricardo Mendes completed his hat-trick but Donnelly pulled one back again for the hosts to make it 5-3.
Flavio and Ziraldo then scored a quick fire two goals as Mozambique raced to a 7-3 lead before Sanssoucie brought some respectability to the scoreline for the final scoreline of 7-4.
The heavy scoreline however, is not a true reflection of how South Africa matched Mozambique man for man.
However, Pinto’s side biggest shortcoming was failure to be composed in front of goals and hopefully they will have improved on this aspect when they next take on Zambia on Sunday.