Former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Roger de Sa has given his thoughts on South Africa's AFCON third spot finish.
The national team landed in the country early this morning and scores of South Africans turned up to give them a heroes' welcome.
"I think they did very well, they did more than what anybody expected," De Sa tells KickOff.
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"I think after being out of it for so long, the fact that they reached the semi-final and comeback with third place it's a lot more than what we all expected to be honest. I just hope now we can build on this you know, I hope we can get better, stronger, and more confident and keep on developing, and not just sleep on it like we did in 1996 onwards.
"We must not repeat what we did after the 1996 achievement, I hope we learned our lesson and we move and get better. I think reaching the semi-final is a fantastic achievement if you look at where we coming from all these years.
"Of course, we can't be happy with coming third, but we should celebrate, be happy, and honour the people who have done a great job. But I think we got to reach out for more, in years to come nobody is going to remember that South Africa came third. We only going to remember that they won it in 1996 and that's it. No-one remembers who came third in the last AFCON two years ago, so that's what happens.
"But right now I think the celebrations are right and they are well-deserved because the Bafana players have done a fantastic job. Sometimes what is key is how you finish the tournament, and when you playing for position third and forth, the players who finish third come back home in a happier mood than the guys who finish second," he added.
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"And many people are against the third and fourth finish match as well, they don't like the match, they are saying it's just a waste of time. They are saying it's just for filling up the television schedule. And probably it is you know.
"Even in the FIFA World Cup, a lot of the countries play the players who have not played at all and rest the stars. Sometimes they even send their star players home even before the match. But for us, we needed to see it through and get as high as possible in the tournament because it has references in bonuses and national team ranking. All of that comes into play."
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