Lackluster Bafana Bafana held to a 1-1 draw by minnows Mauritania

South Africa ended their African Nations Cup campaign they way they began it – with a poor result at home against one of the continent’s lightweights in an embarrassing result.

Friday’s 1-1 draw with Mauritania means Bafana Bafana finished third in their group behind a country who have not been in the top 100 of FIFA world rankings for the past two decades and leaves the local game again with more questions than answers.

South Africa, who play in the World Cup qualifiers next month, missed a penalty and failed to take advantage of an opponent who played down to 10 men for the last 20 minutes of the game.

It was hardly a performance to inspire confident that Bafana have a chance to dream of a place in Russia in 2018.

Thamsanqa Gabuza missed the spot kick with a soft effort and Mauritania cleverly finished the game with a series of nigging fouls and stoppages to knock the rhythm out of the home team’s game.

Again there was a naivety to the Bafana game that suggests all the talk of building for the future is more marketing fluff than reality.

South Africa started off slowly on a slippery pitch and it need the concession of goal to get their game going.

After Mpho Makola had fluffed a half chance in only the eighth minute it was Mauritania who made the first impact with a 17th minute goal.

The five or six passes that Mauritania were able to string together highlighted the lack of tactical discipline that was evident early on from Shakes Mashaba’s team.

But nine minutes later they were level. Makola forced a corner as he cut in from the right and hit a left footed shot on target that Mauritania’s goalkeeper Brahim Souleymane turned around the post for a corner.

From the resultant set piece, the keeper slipped on his line as he came out belatedly to try and get to a loose ball and was beaten from just a metre out by a simple headed finish for Hlompho Kekana, scoring his fifth goal for the country.

Kekana tried one of his trademark long range efforts but was wide in the 35th minute but South Africa could have gone to the break ahead when Thamsanqa Gabuza raced away on the counter attack but Souleymane made a brave stop to deny, catching Gabuza’s knee in the process and being cut in the mouth.

He was taken off at half time and replaced by teenager Mohamed Salahedine, who of several alleged teenagers in the Mauritania although some of the dates of birth looked preposterously implausible.

Salahedden’s first real save was to stop Gabuza’s 52nd minute penalty after Mohamed wade had been harshly judged to have handled the ball in the area.

Tokelo Rantie came on to add a little more pace for the final 20 minutes but there were no enough penatrative balls to give him opportunity. – TMG Digital.