Baxter’s men face tricky tie in Nigeria

SOUTH Africa’s daunting away trip to Nigeria on Saturday will be their 50th Africa Cup of Nations qualifier since they first entered the preliminaries for the continental finals just a month after readmission to international football in 1992.

Despite only being successful in one of their last four qualification tournaments for the Cup of Nations‚ their result record over the last 25 years is decent in the preliminaries.

Bafana Bafana have lost only seven of their previous 49 qualifiers‚ with 21 wins and 21 draws.

Too many of the latter has been their Achilles Heel in recent qualification campaigns‚ though a point away in Uyo at the weekend would be considered a positive start to their 2019 campaign.

In their qualification campaign for the 2015 finals‚ Bafana drew four of their six matches‚ with one win and a single defeat as they finished third in the pool. In qualifiers away from the home the side has nine wins‚ 11 draws and five defeats in 25 matches‚ and have managed to outscore 35-26.

Two of those away defeats came in their first qualification campaign for the 1994 finals as they lost 4-1 in Zimbabwe and 30 in Zambia‚ tough lessons as to the rigours of international football for the side.

Other defeats came in Gabon (1999)‚ Niger (2011) and Mauritania (2015)‚ the last two particularly disappointing results that proved very costly for the side.

That Mauritania loss is their only one in their last 13 qualifiers home or away‚ while they have not lost a home qualifier in a decade since a Chris Katongo hat-trick for Zambia handed Chipolopolo a stunning 3-1 win at Newlands in Cape Town.

South Africa’s biggest victories in Cup of Nations qualifiers were both 4-0 scorelines over Chad (home‚ 2007) and Gambia (away‚ 2016)‚ while their biggest defeat was in their very first game‚ that 4-1 loss in Zimbabwe.

Their leading scorers in qualifiers are Benni McCarthy and Shaun Bartlett‚ who each scored four goals in the preliminaries. — TMG their opponents