Changes scheduled for Bafana Caf games
Fixtures for Cameroon event extended to March 2019
The second round of group games in the preliminaries for the 2019 finals were due to be played between March 19 to 27‚ during the next international window‚ but postponed at the request of the five countries heading to the World Cup finals.
They asked instead to be able to use those dates to play preparatory friendlies ahead of the tournament in Russia.
Nigeria‚ who share the same Nations Cup qualifying group with Bafana Bafana‚ were particularly keen for the postponement because their scheduled Group E game in March was away at the Seychelles – hardly a testing encounter to get them ready for the rigours of Russia.
The March window for international matches is the last before the World Cup‚ so Caf agreed to the request and confirmed the postponed March qualifiers would all be played in November.
But they have now changed that plan and rather shifted the games along which means the March round of games will now be be played in September and the rest of the fixtures moved along in order.
So South Africa keep the same sequence of matches in Group E‚ which is Nigeria (away)‚ Libya (home)‚ Seychelles (home)‚ Seychelles (away)‚ Nigeria (home) and Libya away.
They beat Nigeria 2-0 away in June and they will now host Libya on September 8. They will then meet the Seychelles home and away in October and take on Nigeria at home on November 18. Bafana’s last group game is away against Libya on March 16‚ 2019.
The Nations Cup finals are scheduled to be played in Cameroon in June 2019 and have been increased in size which means that the top two finishers from each of the 12 qualifying groups advance. — TimesLIVE