Durban — Bafana Bafana Assistant Coach Helman Mkhalele has confirmed that he will lead a young side into the upcoming Hollywoodbets Cosafa Cup set to kick-off next week.
It had been reported in recent weeks that Bafana Head Coach Hugo Broos would not take charge of the side and the rein would be handed over to national under-23 coach David Notoane. However, it is Broos' second in command Mkhalele who will lead the group mostly made up of U23 players.
The 52 year old mentor revealed to the SAFA.net his joy at the mindset of the squad they have called up but will require a couple of training sessions before they trim down and pick a final 23 man squad for the tournament.
“We have assembled this young group mostly comprising of Under-23 players because we are also building for the future," Mkhalele revealed to the SAFA media team.
"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.”
“Each game we play as Bafana Bafana, we play with the intention of winning it.
“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.”
“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."
Defending champions Bafana will join the competitions at the quarter final stage and will play their first game against Mozambique on the 13th of July.
IOL Sport