Hugo Broos' message to his Bafana Bafana team is clear: deliver six points and nothing less as South Africa launch their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Uganda and South Sudan this month.
Bafana will host the Ugandans this Friday at the Orlando Stadium before jetting off to confront the northeastern Africa nation.
South Africa are the highest ranked team in Group K where Congo round up the pool. Mzansi are 10th on the continent and 57th globally, while the rest are all outside of the top 20 in Africa.
This is why Broos will not accept anything less than half-a-dozen of points from these two fixtures.
“If we go back to the last eight months of this year, we can be very happy with the results of Bafana. We had a very good AFCON.
“We got a bronze medal and after that we had a good friendly game against Algeria. The games against Zimbabwe and Nigeria were also good, we had good results.
“That means we are confident and we believe in ourselves to start those qualifiers for the 2025 AFCON. It is very important to have a good start when you play qualifiers.
“When you have a good start you put pressure on the opponents and when you don’t, it is just the opposite and you have to try and avoid that.
Recap of Broos’ latest Bafana squad
“With the quality and the status that we have now, this means a good start is six points. I don’t think we should be happy if we don’t have six out of six points.
Broos continued: “We are ranked 10th in Africa and this is the place that is normal for a team like South Africa and we have always tried to achieve that, we are now there and it means we have to try and stay there. You can stay there by having good results in the next three months.”
South Africa’s opening game is scheduled to kick-off at 18:00 this Friday in Soweto while the tie against the Bright Stars of Sudan will take place on Tuesday, September 10.
Bafana will then welcome Congo next month in a tie that Mzansi has dominated since 1992, winning five of the six official games between the two nations.
Bafana Bafana training at Dobsonville Stadium today ahead of the AFCON qualifier against Uganda at Orlando Stadium on Friday, 6 September. pic.twitter.com/yeuAYZpLwH
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) September 2, 2024
