South Africa fought gallantly in front of a packed
National Stadium but could not overcome a determined home side.
Bafana Bafana’s goal came from Bernard Parker, who
unfortunately also scored an own goal to give the home side the lead. Getaneh
Kebede had equalised for Ethiopia.
“The dream is over for us as far as 2014 Brazil is
concerned. Now we have to regroup and see what lies ahead of us. My mandate was
to qualify the team for the World Cup and I didn’t do that, so I will have to
wait and see what will happen as it is no longer in my hands. It was a
difficult assignment from the beginning having lost some crucial points in the
early stages of the qualifiers but I agreed to the challenge because I believed
we could make it, sadly it was not to be,” said Igesund.
The Bafana mentor admitted he was disappointed with
the end result of the Addis Ababa encounter.
“You can see from the attitude and commitment of the
players that we really wanted to win this match. We threw everything at them.
We managed to score but our own errors cost us the game. It is one of those
things that happen in football.
“We worked so hard in the last year to get to where
we are. We have made huge strides. It is just unfortunate that we found
ourselves in a position where we had to win this game. I am pleased with the
effort of every single player, they gave their all. We did everything that we
could possibly do. I told the players to walk with their heads high because it
was a fantastic performance away from home,” added Igesund.
His sentiments were echoed by captain Itumeleng
Khune.
“We are very disappointed with the result, but I
believe we gave a very good account of ourselves. We are proud of the display
we put out in this match. We did everything we could but unfortunately things
didn’t go our way. You can see the way we were playing that we really wanted to
go to Brazil, but we have missed out,” said Khune.
With five points ahead in Group A, the result means
Ethiopia has qualified for the play-offs which will determine which five teams
represent Africa in Brazil next year. Bafana Bafana will face Botswana in their
last match of the qualifiers, while Ethiopia will face the Central African
Republic (CAR) in September.
- SAFA
