Helman Mkhalele, who will be leading Bafana Bafana at next month’s Cosafa Cup has said he has been pleased with the attitude of the young squad since they started preparations.
Bafana will be represented by a young squad, predominantly made of U23 players. National u23 coach David Notoane had been expected to lead the team in preparations for the CAF U23 Championship qualifiers, but it is Bafana assistant Mkhalele who will be in charge.
Last year Mhkalele was supposed to be the head coach of the victorious South African team, but he found himself sidelined after testing positive for Covid, so Morena Ramoreboli stepped up to lead the team.
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Mkhalele told the SAFA website he was pleased with what he has seen so far in camp. He has been working with a provisional squad, and will make final decisions on the 23 to travel to Durban for the competition.
“I am happy with how our first training session went (on Tuesday) and I’m also happy with both the attitude and the work ethic they gave, given the fact that most of them are just a day or two into their pre-season training with their respective teams,” Mkhalele told SAFA media.
“We will have a few more extra sessions (on Wednesday) before we can make final decisions on the final squad that is to travel with us to Durban.
“Each game we play as Bafana Bafana, we play with the intention of winning it.
“We have assembled this young group, mostly comprising of Under-23 players because we are also building for the future.
“There’s the AFCON qualifiers we need to be ready for in the upcoming few months, and the Under-23 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers we need to start preparing and building towards now and not a few weeks prior, for example.”
Bafana will begin in the quarter-finals of the competition, when they meet Mozambique.
