“They were desperate, they didn't know what to do!”

The biggest World Cup in history had, as the opening match, a duel between Mexico and South Africa. It was basically a replay of the match that opened the 2010 edition.

If it was 1-1 then, the South Africans had no chance against Mexico last night. Quinones opened the scoring early in the 9th minute and things got terribly complicated for Bafana Bafana in the second half when the dismissals of Sithole (49th minute) and Zwane ('84) briefly left them down to 9 men.

In the context where the shooting ratio was 16-3 and his team produced a paltry xG of just 0.08, coach Hugo Broos' description of the game was surprising.

South Africa coach surprised after 0-2 with Mexico: “They were desperate”

“I don't think that my players have dropped their level, but that this level is much higher than in other games. It's the World Cup, we faced a good team, but I have to tell you that we played a good game.

At certain moments of the game I saw a desperate Mexico, they didn't know what to do with the ball. The organization was perfect defensively, but offensively I think we have to improve.

We had a few situations where the last pass or the marking of the players was not the right one. It is something to improve in the next few days and I think if we play the same but with a better offensive expression, we will get better results. (…)

Why did we use those players? When you see the match you will understand why. In the first 15 minutes, Mexico put a lot of pressure, but then it was balanced.

Mexico became desperate, they didn't know what to do with the ball. The two central defenders were waiting with their foot on the ball, they couldn't find solutions. That tells you why I played like that”, said Hugo Broos.

Later in the conference, Broos got back at the Mexican representative with a new sharp observation:

“Mexico's team has great quality, maybe apart from the defense guysbut otherwise they are very fast players, offensively and defensively. You saw the first goal, where their player came to press. I think he did a 20 meter sprint. It's a great quality of theirs, but I think we did well, some times better than others.”

“Second red card a bit too easy”

The Bafana Bafana coach was keen to show his displeasure at the late dismissal of Zwane, who saw “red” after raising his arms in an attack and elbowing an opponent.

“It is not pleasant for the two players to receive a red card in the first match of the World Cup. The first dismissal I think must be accepted, an opponent was going alone towards the goal and Yaya fouled him. I can understand. But the second… Here you can discuss, because the Mexican player blocks my player.

That's what the referee ruled, we have to accept, but I think it was a little bit for the second red card. We have two players who cannot play in the next match, but we have other players.

If we can have the same mentality and play like we did today, I'm sure we'll get good results in the next games,” said the Belgian coach.

We have 7 days until the next match. The guys are professionals. Not being able to recover would be a bit ridiculous. I don't think we'll have any problems, I'm sure not. In the next two days we have to overcome today's disappointment and fatigue, but from Saturday or Sunday the boys will be ready to train well. We have to work on our offensive game, what we did today was not enough.

– Hugo Broos

“The goal remains to get out of the group stage”

“For us, the goal remains the same as a week ago, to survive the group stage. It's still possible! OK, the start wasn't good, it wasn't what we expected.

We didn't want to lose today, but that's it. We will try to get points in the next two games and we will see,” concluded Hugo Broos.