Going to the two opening matches of the 2021 African Cup of Nations (AFCON), Bafana Bafana’s target was at least to come back with four points but they could only manage to get three.
They lost the first game 2-0 away in Ghana and beat Sudan 1-0 at Orlando Stadium on Sunday.
With four games still to be played in these qualifiers, Bafana head coach Molefi Ntseki believes that all is not lost especially with CAF using the head to head system.
There’s a long break between now and the next international break when Bafana will be playing the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in March next year.
Ntseki says he’s going to use this period to scout and profile more talent for the senior team including English based striker Thomas Barkhuizen.
There are two World Cup qualifiers scheduled between March and July before the AFCON qualifiers resume in September next year.
A lot was also said on Sunday about the poor crowd attendance of Bafana’s match at Orlando Stadium, although this also had a lot to do with the result in Ghana, generally, football attendance in Gauteng has been a major concern for some time.
But football fans and administrators also have to balance with the fact that the technical team needs the high altitude to their advantage in the official matches. Ntseki was still happy with the fans who came out to cheer the team on Sunday.
As we get closer to the World Cup qualifiers where only five countries out of 55 CAF member nations will represent Africa, most of the time its countries with exports in the top leagues in Europe which qualify to the World Cup. Ntseki is also aware of the role of overseas based players in his squad. – Report by Velile Mnyandu
@BafanaBafana players warming up ahead of their #2021AFCONq against Sudan at Orlando Stadium at 3pm. Catch the action live on @SPORTATSABC pic.twitter.com/Z93UurDzEB
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) November 17, 2019
