South Africa head coach Hugo Broos believes his team performed better against Nigeria in their semi-final match, which they lost 4-2 on penalties in the 2023 TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Côte d’Ivoire.
Despite coming back from a goal down to force penalties, the Bafana Bafana ultimately lost.
In response to their loss, Broos said his team performed significantly better and should have won.
“Football can be hard sometimes, when you see the performance of my team today, and then there is penalties, and then you lose the penalties and you are not in the finals, it’s hard to accept that because we play very good game today.
“I think we were the best team in the first half, we got the best chances, Nigeria didn’t have any chance. Second half they have few chances which resulted in a goal and we changed something tactically, and we could come back,” he said.
He added,” We created more chances which means if we had scored, we would have been in the final and not Nigeria.
The Belgian tactician hailed his team for what has been a great tournament for them.
“It’s a big disappointment for everyone, we believe we played a very good game, not just today but throughout the tournament. I’m proud of my players, the disappointment is this but the proudness is that,” he concluded.
South Africa will now face D.R Congo in the third-place playoff on Saturday, February 10.