Missing a crucial penalty in a key opening clash of any major tournament can be demoralizing for any player of note. Bafana Bafana's Percy Tau is suffering from that unfortunate experience after losing 2-0 to Mali on Tuesday night.
In South Africa's 2023 Africa Cup of Nations first game, the Al Ahly SC forward was given the opportunity to put Bafana into the lead from the penalty spot after the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) had instructed the referee to come over and award a spot kick for an elbow on Evidence Makgopa in the box midway through the first half.
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Tau was unable to capitalise and sent his spot-kick horribly over the goal-post much to the relief of the Malians in the stands. That mistake continued to haunt the 29-year-old Tau after the game.
"Look, this is not the start we had wanted. If we had scored a goal…I mean if we had scored the penalty then it could have changed the game. But then we missed it, so we just ended up prolonging the game," Tau told the media after the game.
A lot has been made of the incident where Tau was seen by many to be wrestling the spot-kick away from Teboho Mokoena, who had lined up to take it soon after it was awarded by the match officials.
Right now, the focus for the 1996 champions will be to head back to the drawing board to plan for Namibia on Sunday, their next Afcon group stage match.
"If we scored it, it was going to change the game. At the moment, it still hurts but I will try and gather myself because we still have two games to play for and try and get the results.
"It was a good game, (it's) unfortunate that I missed the penalty and we lost but we will regroup," Tau said.
After facing the Brave Warriors, who stunned Tunisia in the other match in Group E on Tuesday, Tau and co will turn their attention to the Carthage Eagles next Wednesday in their group finale.
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