South Africa went down 2-0 to Ghana in the first match of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, and the team head coach Molefi Ntseki believes aggressive football can see them through Sunday’s fixture against Sudan.
Ntseki, who was speaking after yesterday’s training session at Orlando Stadium, insisted that his side must come firing all the cylinders for them to pick maximum points.
“I have told the players that the game against Ghana is behind us, there is nothing we can do about it. Yes, we are not happy with the loss but we can’t change the result, so we have to focus on what is ahead of us – and this time it is Sudan,” said Ntseki in an interview with Safa portal.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] “We are playing in front of our fans, we lost three points in Ghana, and now we must come out firing on all cylinders against Sudan. We need to be aggressive from the first whistle because in the qualifiers if you don’t win your home games you are as good as not making into the next stage. We have suffered a setback but now we need to get our campaign back on track.” [/perfectpullquote]
Bafana will be meeting Sudan for the third time in competitive football. In the previous two meetings, South Africa won both fixtures, with the most recent meeting being the 2015 AFCON qualifier which they won 2-1.
“Football is a funny game – if you don’t pitch up on the day you will go home empty handed. We have to forget about the past results and work in the present,” added Ntseki.
“We have selected 25 players that we have confidence in, so there will be some changes to refreshen the team a bit as we also take into consideration that there was some heavy travel in between – for us this is a must-win, no other results will matter.”
South Africa are currently third place in Group C of the qualifiers, which is led by Sudan and followed by Ghana. Sao Tome e Principe is bottom of the table.
