Durban - The Confederation of African Football (CAF) conducted the draw for the 2023 Africa Cup Of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers on Tuesday night and Bafana Bafana were made known of the path they would have to undertake to secure a spot at next year’s finals in Cote d’Ivoire.
Coach Hugo Broos’ men will face Morocco, Zimbabwe and Liberia in group K. Former Leeds United and National team captain, Lucas Radebe, who was also a part of the draw alongside Ivorian Salomon Kalou expressed his optimism to the media.
He highlighted the need for Bafana to pay special attention to North African giants Morocco, who were knocked out of the quarter-final stage by eventual finalists Egypt at the last showpiece.
“I’m very confident, I think we are capable of qualifying for AFCON but I think it’s very important that we beat Morocco because I think we have enough to deal with our neighbours, Zimbabwe,” he said.
Morocco are currently ranked second on the continent according to the latest FIFA rankings and the only team in group K with the closest being South Africa in 13th place.
Bafana Bafana have been drawn in Group K for the 2023 AFCON tournament together with Morocco, Zimbabwe and Liberia.#AFCON 2023 Qualifiers DRAW #AFCON2023Q pic.twitter.com/nk4HhyI4o8
— Bafana Bafana (@BafanaBafana) April 19, 2022
Although with an AFCON crown to their name, Bafana have missed on AFCON qualification five times since Tunisia 1994 having also also missed out on the 2010, 2012, 2017 and 2021 editions of the continent’s biggest football competition.
Having fumbled qualification to this year’s World Cup. Coach Broos still has a point to prove amongst South African football fans. The Belgian international will be very confident going into this set of qualifiers having previously qualified for and won an AFCON trophy albeit with Cameroon.
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