National players, Ronwen Williams and Percy Tau are confident that Bafana Bafana are going to next year’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Ivory Coast as title contenders and not just to make up the numbers.
Bafana will engage in two international friendly international matches against Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the Orlando stadium in the next couple of days, before travelling to Ivory Coast for an away match.
Bafana Bafana won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996, reached the final two years later and finished third in 2000, but since then they have either not made an impact in the tournament or failed to qualify.
The South Africans also missed out on the last tournament that was held in Cameroon last year. They bowed out in the quarterfinals in the 2019 Afcon in Egypt in 2019 after losing to Nigeria.
Bafana are now coached by former Afcon winner with Cameroon, Hugo Broos, and the players are adamant they will be a force to be reckoned with in Ivory Coast early next year.
“We don’t have to put other people higher than us. We also believe in ourselves. We did it before, but we could not beat Nigeria and the coach said the group is more difficult in the Afcon and then it gets better, and we want to go all the way,” says Tau.
“We believe that we can challenge. We can go all the way and we need to dream big. Why go there if you don’t believe you can win it,” says Williams.
Strong Team
Broos has selected a strong team with a formidable strike force that includes players on form such as Lyle Foster, Tau, Zakhele Lepasa and Lebo Mothiba.
All the strikers are on song which bodes well for Afcon.
“We haven’t seen Lebo in a long time. We missed him. We are also happy he is doing well, not only him, Zakhele is also doing well, we want to have that competition upfront so that we can get the goals and also know which combination would be better leading to Afcon,” Tau adds.
South African fans have not been attending Bafana’s matches in big numbers in recent times, but in the last game against Morocco, they came out in their droves.
The players are urging the fans to support them.
“We felt the love the last game against Morocco that was probably the best turn out I have experienced playing for Bafana they gave us extra motivation to keep going against Morocco and we showed, we can compete against the best,” Williams adds.
“I also believe if we start winning more games, the fans will come when the results are good everyone wants to come and be part of it,” Tau explains.
The Bafana match against Namibia at Orlando stadium on Saturday kicks off at three PM.
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