While Bafana Bafana stand-in coach Helman Mkhalele admitted disappointment at SA bowing out of the Cosafa Cup main competition early, he believes the focus should be more on the long-term vision given the youthful nature of his squad.

Bafana suffered a 5-4 penalty shoot-out defeat to Mozambique at King Zwelithini Stadium in Durban on Wednesday night after a 0-0 draw at full time.

Bafana now play in the Cosafa Cup plate semifinal against Madagascar at Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium in Clermont, Durban, at noon today.

Mkhalele, who led the team in the absence of coach Hugo Broos, took a young and inexperienced squad – effectively an SA under-23 combination – to the Cosafa Cup, almost all of whom are not regulars for their senior teams in the DStv Premiership and National First Division.

Despite that, Mkhalele’s young boys' performance in open play against Mozambique was impressive, as they dominated the far more experienced Mambas and were let down by poor finishing.

The youth emphasis at this tournament was in line with the mandate given by the SA Football Association to begin assembling the building blocks of an U-23 team to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers in September and later graduate to be regulars in the senior national side.

“If you look at the type of players that we brought here you can see that it’s because we have plans,” Mkhalele said.

“One of the plans is to prepare young players, especially for the U-23s, because they don’t get an opportunity to be together and prepare for the qualifiers that are coming in September.

“We wanted to create an environment where this team gets to know each other, so that when we get to the qualifiers for the Olympics then at least we will have a team that has started to work together.

“But we are also looking at younger players since it was our mandate to make sure we build a new team going forward. We have given this team an opportunity to raise their hands so that they can qualify to play for Bafana Bafana in the Afcon qualifiers.

“It was painful because we didn’t go through to the next round but for the future we believe that we are heading in the right direction.”

The main focus for Bafana in the plate game against Madagascar will be to sharpen their shooting skills upfront as they proved blunt in that department against Mozambique.

Should they beat Madagascar, Bafana will play Botswana or the impressive eSwatini in the plate final.