Bafana Bafana are targeting a friendly international against Algeria as part of their preparations for the next year’s Africa Cup of Nations finals in Equatorial Guinea.
But that will be dependent on tomorrow’s draw at the Confederation of African Football (Caf) headquarters in Cairo, Egypt for the biennial, continental tournament.
“Obviously if we get into the same group as them, a friendly will be out of the question,” Bafana assistant coach Thabo Senong said on Sunday during the post match conference following their 2-0 Mandela Challenge win over Ivory Coast “But a friendly against Algeria would be ideal for us because they are very organised and that would test our abilities to break down such teams.”
The Desert Foxes were among the best teams in qualification round, the north Africans booking their ticket on matchday four and winning five of their six matches to set themselves up as early favourites for the three-week long, 16-nation tournament.
And the South Africans are of the view testing themselves against such a side will go a long way towards making them ready for the tough task that lies ahead.
“Our main objective is to prepare well for the tournament,” Senong said “And while we’ve been doing well, we can’t say our team is at its optimum best. That’s why we’d also like to play against a west African team so that we can get to experience competition against their physical attributes.”
The Ivory Coast hardly presented that physicality on Sunday, Herve Renard’s young boys struggling to cope with Bafana’s electrifying pace. Whether that will work against a full strength Elephants side or a Cameroon or Ghana is the question the technical team would like to have answered before the tournament.
And Safa president Danny Jordaan, who left for Cairo yesterday’, will attempt to seal some friendlies in line with the squad’s requirements. Senong expressed delight at the fact that the second string team that they used for Sunday’s clash took to their way of playing like a duck to water.
“We’re more about progression play than possession. You can call the style we’re now playing positive possession football because we tell the players to keep going forward. And we’re very impressed with their performance,” he said, adding that their victory was somewhat an indication that the local Premiership is much stronger than the other leagues on the continent.
“It was a good match, two competitive sides. But you can see the difference between our league and the Ivorian one.”
Renard agreed: “In the PSL they play at this high level. I saw the Telkom final and the game was good and played at a fast pace.”
What the two coaches missed out though is the fact that the Ivorians were missing players from Sewe Sport who beat Egypts Al Ahly 2-1 in the first leg of the Confederation Cup final.
Renard said the Elephants were not strong because “the competition there hasn’t started yet”.
“But you have to select the young players when your senior ones are not there. It was interesting to see the gap between the first team and this one. And I hope that in some years these players can replace the likes of Yaya and Gervinho,” said Renard.
For Bafana, the match showed there’s little separating the first choice players and second stringers. - The Star