Amajita coach Raymond Mdaka says their defeat to Colombia in the FIFA U20 World Cup last 16 was ‘a hard pill to swallow’.

South Africa suffered a 3-1 defeat to the South American side in the round of 16 match played at the Estadio Fiscal de Talca in Chile.

Amajita’s journey in the global tournament has now come to an end, while Colombia will move on to the quarter-finals, where they will take on Spain.

South Africa became the third African team to get eliminated from the tournament behind Nigeria and Egypt.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow, more so if you have a team that you believe can be able to get results,” Mdaka said.

“We get so used to winning and then when you lose it hits deep.

“But other than that, we understand it is the nature of football, more especially in the knockout stages – you play, you don’t win and you’re out.

“But even before one can talk about the match, I think it’s an experience for the boys, the technical team and everyone who was here at the World Cup,” said Mdaka.

“Back to the game I think we were caught in the first few minutes where we could not build up as we are used to.

“We were caught with the first goal from the blind side, and I think from there we got settled.

“Then we got a number of chances that we missed, and we had a goal through the penalty. But then we conceded the second goal and the last goal, there is not much to say about it.

“We said to the boys (keep your) heads up, and we will see what will happen going forward,” he concluded.