After having started a little bit slow and showing some signs of nervousness, Hugo Broos’ Bafana Bafana had to settle down and managed to contain the bully Ghanaians who kept them on the back foot for about 15 to 20 minutes, luckily they managed to keep them away from their captain Ronwen Williams’ goals.
Mamelodi Sundowns defender Rushine De Reuck was the first man to go into the referee’s books after he brought down Ghananian forward who was goal bound, but he tripped him and the referee was right on the action.
As the game progresses, it was a rather 50/50 affair with both sides battling it out in the middle of the park, the midfielders were on a war zone as the game became physical and the referee had to book some of the players so that he can get the game under control.
With the game progressing, Bongikuhle Hlungwane who was causing all sorts of trouble for The Black Stars defense on the left hand side was brought down, Mokoena hit it directly and Ofori saved it back to the on-coming Muthobi Mvala who missed the golden opportunity.
After settling down, Bafana Bafana found the back of the net on the 36th minute through AL Ahly’s newly signed attacker Percy Tau who headed in Hlungwane’s cross from the left to beat Orlando Pirates’ goalkeeper Richard Ofori, but the far side assistant referee flagged the former Brighton and Hove Albion star for offside, but the replays shows that there is Tai was clearly on-side, the Ghanaians were left given a life line.
Shortly after half-time, Baroka FC striker evidence Makgopa failed to capitalise from the mistake by the shaky Ofori who could not handle a Teboho Mokoena cross from the right, it went through his legs and found Makgopa literally on the goal line, but he somehow managed to to do the most difficult thing, he missed to score in an open net.
The 21 year old Bakgakga Ba Ga-Mphahlele striker Makgopa broke down the left and found himself inside the box one more time on the 53rd minute of the game, but his lack of experience worked against him as he was not composed enough to can score.
Mvala came very close to opening the scoring through a overhead kick after Bafana managed to by-pass Ghana’s defense on the left hand side and a cross came in, but Mvala’s effort went narrowly wide off target on the 66th minute.
With 15 minutes remaining, Ghana were forced to replace their first choice goalkeeper Ofori who was having trouble with his right leg, on the other hand, Broos also made changes of his own and replaced Percy Tau by Kaizer Chiefs’ utility player Njabulo Blom and his teammate Njabulo Ngcobo also came on for Mvala who was already booked.
Hlongwane who has been a thorn in Ghanaian’s flash finally managed to break the deadlock on the 83rd minute after he tapped in a low cross from the right and beat the substitute goalkeeper who watched the ball roll into the back of the net.
South Africa managed to protect their lead, there was not dangerous shot that was fired to Williams, the score could have been more of the officiating was not sub-standard.
Bafana are now on top of the log with four points and one goal in the bag, they will remain on top until after the game between Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, anything could still happen if Zimbabwe wins.
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