Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has reacted to the Africa Cup of Nations draw for the upcoming tournament in January next year in Ivory Coast.
Bafana knew they could have faced a ‘Group of Death’ after the latest FIFA rankings saw them drop from pot 2 to pot 3 in the seeding bowls.
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South Africa were then drawn alongside Tunisia, Mali and Namibia in Group E. Broos says he’s happy with the draw and that they avoided big guns like Senegal, Morocco or Cote d’Ivoire.
“Obviously I’m not really unhappy when you see the teams that are represented, I think with Mali, for sure we have a very big team, on the other side Tunisia also but I prefer to have Tunisia than Senegal or Cote d’Ivoire,” Broos said to the media.
“So, that’s also good and then Namibia, we know. I think we can achieve our best level that we can go (to progress out) of the group stages,” he said.
The Belgian went on and said that he did not have any particular preference prior to the draw, because being in Pot 3, anything could’ve happened and it could have been worse.
“When you’re in pot 3 you don’t have to hope much, because you’ll have two big teams in your group but when you see with Tunisia, it’s certainly a big team also but it’s a little bit less than Morocco or Senegal or the hosts Cote d’Ivoire,” he went on.
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“So from that side we’re doing a good thing. Mali the same, it’s not really the big top (nations), but again it will be tough, two good teams, to be directly qualified, you have to be good. So we will see, I’m rather happy with the draw, it could (have been) worse,” he said.
Bafana will play AFCON hosts Cote d’Ivoire next Tuesday in Abidjan and Broos also said that it will be a good preparation for them for the tournament to play in front of big crowds and he’s happy they didn’t draw Ivory Coast.
“It’s a good game for us, we will be confronted with one of the best teams in Africa, when you are the host of AFCON, you always go far in the competition.
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“And secondly we’ll play in a full stadium, I think it’s several years ago that South Africa played in front of 30 000, 40 000 people. That will be the case next Tuesday against Cote d’Ivoire, that will be a good experience for us also, because when you play AFCON, you play in full stadiums.
“I’m happy with the friendly next Tuesday and also very happy that we’re not in the group of Cote d’Ivoire,” he added.
Groups:
Group A: Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau
Group B: Egypt, Ghana, Cape Verde Islands, Mozambique
Group C: Senegal, Cameroon, Guinea, Gambia
Group D: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Angola
Group E: Tunisia, Mali, South Africa, Namibia
Group F: Morocco, DR Congo, Zambia, Tanzania
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