Bafana warm up with three more friendlies

GORDON Igesund is stepping up Bafana’s final preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations, with three friendly matches confirmed yesterday.

The national team coach also revealed that he would not tolerate late arrivals for Bafana camps from late December until he named his 23-man squad for the Afcon on January 9. Igesund said Bafana would face Malawi at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on December 22, Norway on January 8 at the Cape Town Stadium and Algeria three days later in their last practice match at Orlando Stadium. But for the coach to genuinely prepare for what he has called the “tough, but achievable mandate” of reaching the semifinals in the tournament, he needed players to be available on time. “The official release date put out by Fifa for players to report to camp is January 5, and there’s been some promises from different managers about allowing some of the [overseasbased] players to arrive three days earlier,” Igesund said.

The coach said he would name a provisional squad of about 30 players for the training camps next week.

“Trials are over. I think now things get really serious because the friendlies we have played in the past few months are irrelevant for me. “They mean nothing,” Igesund said. Bafana were beaten by Brazil in September, but returned home to pip Mozambique. Igesund then suffered his second defeat in charge against Poland in October and narrowly beat Kenya four days later.

Bafana also lost to African champions Zambia at Soccer City last month.

Cape Verde, Morocco and Angola make up Bafana’s Group A in the Nations Cup, and Igesund hinted that Neil Tovey would be one of the former players asked to spy on the opposition before Bafana’s opening match on January 19 at Soccer City.

“We are in a very tough group and we need to start doing our homework.”