SIHLANGU PLAYERS: WE ARE SORRY

MBABANE – The national team Sihlangu players have owned up to the embarrassing exit in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers at the hands of minnows Djibouti.

Sihlangu Captain Felix Badenhorst said they were deeply disappointed by the results and he had penned an apology to the nation on behalf of the team. The injured Badenhorst watched from the stands with his assistant Banele ‘Makonesi’ Dlamini as Sihlangu played a goalless draw to bow out of the World Cup qualifiers in shocking circumstances, with a 2-1 aggregate score on Tuesday at Mavuso Sports Centre.

seemingly

“We apologise to the nation and we have no excuses over this. We are sorry for the unexpected results that seemingly embarrassed the country. It was a game that we were supposed to play and win, especially because we were playing against a side that we are far better than in terms of football,” he said.
Badenhorst said in football such things do happen and it was a learning curve for them but disaapointing. He added that they could not point fingers at each other as players and the technical bench, as they were aware that they are all at fault.

progress

“There are factors that may have contributed to our failure to reach the 2022 FIFA World Cup group stages, but still they do not justify the failure to progress in the tournament. We are confident that this will never happen again as we learnt from this game. We never undermined our opponents at any given time and we wanted to win the home match at all costs but there was no goal at the end of the match,” he said.

Badenhorst said it was still hard to believe the results but they have to dust themselves up and focus on the future and make sure that they improved from the performance they displayed against the lowly ranked Djibouti.

Sihlangu lost the first leg away 2-1 before settling for a goalless draw on Tuesday at Mavuso Sports Centre. Sihlangu under now Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Harries ‘Madze’ Bulunga won aggregate 8-1 against Djibouti during the FIFA 2018 World Cup qualifiers in 2015.
Sihlangu will play Zambia in the 2020 CHAN Qualifiers on September 22 with the return fixture in October. The international players will miss out as CHAN is open only to domestic players.

continuation

The international players left the country for South Africa yesterday where they were due to report back to training yesterday afternoon in preparation of the leagues continuation after the FIFA International week. Sihlangu also failed to make it through from the group stages of the COSAFA Cup after playing two draws against Mauritius and Comoros.
Sihlangu has now played seven draws under the stewardship of the Serbian coach, Kostadin since his arrival in January.

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