Bafana Bafana boss Stuart Baxter believes a good Afcon showing would be to advance from their “Group of Death”.
In his first major tournament in charge, the Brit is keen to play down expectations with his team facing off against former African champions Ivory Coast and Morocco, while also playing Namibia.
Monday’s opening-match opponents, the Ivorians, and Morocco’s Atlas Lions are ranked higher than in the Fifa standings.
Our boys in Cairo, ready to go! pic.twitter.com/1KKaLOyH8Y
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) June 20, 2019
And while Baxter’s Bafana progressed from a group featuring Nigeria as the only unbeaten side in qualifying on the continent, the coach is unwilling to look further than their pool games as he works on his side’s style of play.
He tells Kickoff: “I will see a good tournament as establishing ourselves as one of the nations that should be at this Afcon.
“We’ve got to go there, and we’ve got to give, first of all, three performances that get us through the group stages.
GETTING THEIR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT: Bafana Bafana are training hard. Photo: Twitter/@BafanaBafana.
“If we give three great performances and get done on an offside goal in the last game, and don’t go through, will we be able to put down the disappointment of not going through and identify that actually we’re on the way to establishing a good way of playing?”
Baxter insists his side are a work in progress as he prepares his squad with very little game time.
With Safa having failed to secure friendlies for his team since securing qualification since March and SA's preparations were hamstrung again yesterday when Angola cancelled their Cairo practice game.
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
Bafana’s official twitter cited Angola’s “lack of training” as the reason for opting out of the training match.