Mosimane explains why Sebelebele started ahead of Matuludi for Bafana

Pitso Mosimane says Kamogelo Sebelebele’s pace, defensive one-on-one ability and familiarity with the wide areas made him the right choice to replace injured regular right-back Khuliso Mudau in South Africa’s 2027 AFCON qualifying win over Guinea.

Sebelebele was selected ahead of newly signed Mamelodi Sundowns defender Thabang Matuludi as Mosimane began his second spell in charge with a 2-1 victory. Bafana Bafana also made a winning start in Group D, with Ime Okon and Samukele Kabini scoring in each half.

The Orlando Pirates wing-back was named official Man of the Match after holding his own against Guinea’s dangerous wide players.

“This is a quality team. I mean, their wingers are full of trickery. (Lamine Diaby)-Fadiga, he came on and created a problem also on the left side, but Sebelebele was there to match the duels, and that number ten who was giving problems in the first half; they had so much good quality wingers,” Mosimane said at his post-match news conference.

The coach admitted he had initially been concerned about Sebelebele’s ability to cope with Guinea’s physical threat at set-pieces, but said the match-up ultimately suited the 26-year-old.

“The players from Guinea are big boys, tall and strong. I was worried a bit about Sebelebele on set-pieces, but it was like for like, the people he was marking were not very tall, and he’s got the speed to recover the ball and he’s good on one-v-ones,” he said.

“Okay, in the first half he had a little bit of a challenge because the guy has a lot of trickery. But he found him out and he managed to settle. He was Man of the Match, right? Unbelievable, he played well. I guess it’s about the confidence in the areas. I mean, he’s playing every day in those spaces.”

Mosimane also explained that Sebelebele’s disciplined performance was more important than his usual attacking contributions for Orlando Pirates.

“Normally at Pirates you know he is, right? He is always at the end of the attack but not today. This is not the game for him to be doing that. I needed Sebelebele not to overlap too much. I needed him to do what he had to do,” he said.

“Matuludi is good but there’s a lot of tricks here, one-v-ones, so Sebelebele was the right person for the game.”

Bafana Bafana have travelled to Egypt for their second Group D fixture, against Eritrea, on Wednesday evening.