Following Amajita’s disappointing exit at the U20 FIFA World Cup in Chile, coach Raymond Mdaka said the defeat to Colombia is a hard and bitter pill to swallow.
South Africa succumbed to a 3-1 defeat to Colombia during their highly contested Round of 16 encounter at the Estadio Fiscal de Talca in Chile on Wednesday night.
The Colombians broke the deadlock inside 10 minutes, after they caught the complacent South African defence napping.
Amajita, did, however, grew into the game and equalised from the penalty spot a few minutes into the second half when striker Siviwe Magidigidi was brought down inside the box.
Kaizer Chiefs starlet Mfundo Vilakazi stepped up and sent the Colombian goalkeeper the wrong way to level matters. The reigning African champions got opportunities to take the lead, but they got punished as the South Americans scored two more goals to seal a 3-1 victory.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow, more so if you have a team that you believe can be able to get results. We got so used to winning, and then when you lose, it hits deep,” Mdaka told SAFA media after the game.
“But other than that, we understand it is the nature of football, more especially in the knockout stages – you play, you don’t win, and you’re out.
“But even before one can talk about the match, I think it’s an experience for the boys, the technical team, and everyone who was here at the World Cup.”
Mdaka was full of praise for his charges and also gave credit to the supporters who backed this team all the way until the last match.
“We really appreciate the support. We always got messages on our phones daily to show that the country was behind us, which was something we needed.
“We want the country to know that we would have loved to play in the quarterfinals, but football being football, we could not. But we want to say to them it will come, and if we continue working hard with the support, we will represent the country well, and I think we did here,” he added.
Amajita became the third African country to be knocked out in the tournament following Nigeria’s 4-0 loss to Argentina, while Egypt didn’t get out of their group.
Morocco is now the only African team remaining in the competition and will face South Korea on Friday. Amajita are expected to land in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon.
