Bafana Bafana will be ready for Monday’s Ivory Coast Afcon opener despite having just one warm-up game to prepare.
That’s the word from South Africa midfielder Dean Furman after Angola cancelled Wednesday's final training match at the last minute.
The Sable Antelopes ironically called off the game in Cairo due to “lack of training”.
But SuperSport United star Furman believes come Monday, they will be firing on all cylinders after a goalless draw with Ghana on Sunday.
The 30-year-old says: “We have taken most of those learnings into our training sessions and hopefully when Ivory Coast comes, we are more than ready and confident."
Our boys in Cairo, ready to go! pic.twitter.com/1KKaLOyH8Y
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) June 20, 2019
The Capetonian reckons an unbeaten qualifying campaign has boosted the belief inside coach Stuart Baxter’s camp, but insists they are not looking further than their Group D assignments against the Elephants, Namibia and Morocco and then anything can happen once the knockout stages start.
He adds: “We believe this is a strong team and we are coming into this tournament with a lot of confidence based on our qualification campaign where we were undefeated and not forgetting our victory in Nigeria, our performance against them at home and our crucial victory against Libya away.
“All this gives us a lot to be confident about.
“I don’t think we are favourites. There are certain traditional powerhouses of African football but we are happy with where we are, we know we have quality in this team.
Angola has cancelled today's practice match with Bafana Bafana citing lack of training as the reason.
Angola says they have not had any training since arriving in Egypt two days ago.
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) June 19, 2019
“We are in a strong group involving Morocco and Ivory Coast and not discarding a strong Namibia side.
“So we are not concerned about what people say about the favourite tag, we just know that if we perform to our potential, we can achieve big things in this tournament.”