South Africa’s Bafana Bafana arrived in Cairo, Egypt in the early hours of Tuesday, 18 June 2019 and were welcomed by a horde of the AFCON 2019 LOC members and staff from the South African embassy in Egypt.
Having left Dubai late on Monday and with a difference in time, it meant the South Africa Senior Men’s National team only landed in Cairo on Tuesday morning and headed straight to bed.
Although the temperatures are far cooler than the scorching and humid Dubai weather where the team spent the whole week training, the team will only train in the afternoon in Cairo and will play Angola tomorrow (Wednesday, 19 June) at 17h30 South African time.
The match against Angola will be played at Cairo Aero Sports Club at the Ministry of Civil Aviation and will again be a practice game in which both teams can use as many players as possible.
In last Saturday’s practice game against Ghana, Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter used two different teams – one in the first half and the other in the second. The match against Ghana ended in a goalless draw but Baxter said he was satisfied with the exercise of giving all the players a run.
Bafana Bafana open their AFCON tournament on Monday, 24 June against Ivory Coast and four days later, take on neighbours Namibia before finishing their group stage matches with a game against the Atlas Lions of Morocco on 1 July 2019.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s Ambassador to Egypt, Vusi Mavimbela assured the team that the embassy would help looking after the team and that he and his office were just a call away if the team needed any help.
In response, coach Baxter said without promising much, he assured the nation that this team will give it their best.
He said the professionalism and positive attitude shown by the players was an encouraging sign adding that if the team can take this focus to the group matches, something positive was in the offing.
safa.net
