After South Africa\u2019s (SA) jubilation at a first World Cup finals in 16 years turned sour with a 2-0 loss to co-hosts Mexico, winger Thapelo Maseko says they must invoke the spirit of \u200bthe 2023 Africa Cup of Nations to get back on track.<\/p>\n
While the result \u200cagainst Mexico in the tournament opener was not unexpected, the performance was well below par in front of the watching world as SA finished the game with nine men following two red cards and barely laid \u200ba glove on their opponents.<\/p>\n
But ahead of their second Group A fixture against the Czech Republic in Atlanta on Thursday, Maseko believes the side should draw inspiration from the 2023 edition \u200bof continental finals, where they were dire in a 2-0 opening loss to Mali but \u200bended up with the bronze medal after a narrow penalty shoot-out defeat to Nigeria in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
“Something that \u200cI’ve \u2060picked up is that SA are happy when you win, but when you lose, you are the worst. That is a fact,” Maseko told reporters.<\/p>\n
“We have big players with heart and if there is anyone out there doubting this team, they better think again.
\n“We went to \u200bAfcon in 2023 and \u200blost the first game. \u2060But we were able to pick ourselves up and came back home with the bronze medal.”<\/p>\n
The Czechs will provide a different type of \u200bchallenge with their physicality and aerial ability, and Maseko believes SA \u200bmust outwork \u2060their opponents.<\/p>\n
“One thing we must improve on is the intensity, we need to run extra hard. It is something we spoke about as a team. We were not happy with the result \u2060against Mexico \u200band we want to improve going forward.<\/p>\n
“It is a \u200bbig tournament with big teams, but we must go out there and showcase our talents.”<\/p>\n
SA also face South Korea in \u200ba final pool fixture in Monterrey on June 24.<\/p>\n
\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16444,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-37306","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Maseko believes the side should draw inspiration from the 2023 edition \u200bof continental finals.","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37307,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37306\/revisions\/37307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}