Bafana Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki has emphasised the importance and explained his decision to play two friendly matches against Namibia and Zambia ahead of their African Cup of Nation qualifiers against Sao Tome.
The South African national team have already begun their preparations for their upcoming friendlies against their neighbouring countries.
Bafana will first take on Namibia on Thursday with kick-off set for 7pm before taking on Zambia three days later at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium with kick-off scheduled for 3pm.
Ntseki will use this Fifa window to prepare his charges for their important back-to-back Afcon 2021 Cameroon qualifiers against Sao Tome in November this year.
South Africa play Sao Tome on 12 November 2020 at the FNB Stadium and travel away for the return game four days later on 16 November 2020.
‘Our 2021 Afcon qualifiers next month are against a team which play similar to both Namibia and Zambia. This is the reason we have decided to play these two countries. Namibia gave us a very good run in our last match and we will be using this match to improve on our performance against them,’ Ntseki told Safa.net.
‘Sao Tome plays a lot like the two teams (Namibia and Zambia) with most of their players playing in Portugal; they have a very modern understanding of the game,’ added Ntseki.
‘Our tactical approach will be attack and attack but at the same time make sure we keep the ball. If we can get this right, we will have done half the work ahead of our weekend match against Zambia and we will be on the right track with our preparations for Sao Tome.’
