Having seen his side beaten 5-0 by a superior Brazil side, Gordon Igesund was full of praise for the opposition’s hat-trick hero.
Neymar scored three emphatic goals in Wednesday’s 5-0 triumph and South Africa coach Gordon Igesund was quick to laud the display of the 22-year-old.
“Neymar. You can only appreciate him when you watch him on the field live like we did tonight,” Igesund said after the game at the Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg.
“Sometimes you watch him play for Barcelona and you think he’s a good player, but tonight you could really see his quality.”
“You can see he’s in a different league completely. He’s a fantastic player – the way he gets the ball, looks at how to find the spaces for himself, how he creates situations – he’s very intelligent.”
“He runs with pace and great skill and caused us many problems.”
Despite the Bafana Bafana enjoying admirable possession of the ball, Gordon Igesund’s side failed to create many chances of note.
Rather than being downbeat, however, the South African pointed towards the strength of opposition his side faced.
“We’ve got to acknowledge that we were beaten by a very good team tonight. They were absolutely outstanding,” Igesund said.
“Their striking force is outstanding and their ability to eliminate players with speed and precision.”
“When you look at their team, for example, they take off Marcelo from Real Madrid and they bring on Dani Alves from Barcelona.”
“Then they take off David Luiz from Chelsea and they bring on Dante from Bayern Munich.”
“They’ve got so much depth and quality in their team.”
