South Africa coach Vela Khumalo bemoaned his team’s wastefulness as they kicked off their COSAFA Cup campaign with a 1-0 defeat to Mozambique on Wednesday.

The competition’s hosts created numerous chances in the first half at the Free State Stadium, but they struggled to get going after the restart and were ultimately made to pay when Antonio Sumbane scored what turned out to be the winning goal for the Mambas in the 73rd minute.

Khumalo, who guided Amajimbos to the 2025 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals two months ago, felt that all three points were there for the taking in Bloemfontein and admits he has some work to do on the training pitch to ensure his players improve on their finishing.

However, he saw enough of their performance against Mozambique to suggest South Africa will make a deep run in the COSAFA Cup, with their next game against Zimbabwe at the Dr. Petrus Molemela Stadium on Saturday,

“It is not the best way to start the tournament,” Khumalo stated. “Performance-wise, I thought we played well, we played the way we wanted to play. One will then say what needs to be improved on, going back to the training sessions and how we convert our chances.

“I think in the first stanza we had too many entries into the box and in the final third, but we could not score. We were rushing things when we got into the box. In the second half we spoke to the players about this and made the team aware of it.

“We even made the team aware that the only way Mozambique could score was if they got us on transition, which is exactly what they did.

“You know when you are a position-based team, you get carried away with the moment. I think we need to concentrate more, tactically be disciplined and convert our chances. We created enough chances to win the game, but we couldn’t.

“Performance-wise, we will go far, never mind the setback of today. When we go back to what we wanted to achieve in the tournament, it was not to concede a goal, but unfortunately, we did.

“We have to go back and work on our finishing. It sounds like deja vu because when I was with the U17s we suffered the same thing of not scoring goals.”