South African coach Shakes Mashaba has warned his charges not to underestimate Swaziland ahead of their international friendly at the Somhlolo National Stadium in Mbabane on Wednesday night. Kick-off is at 7pm.
Bafana Bafana have a 100 percent win record against Swaziland having faced them in four previous outings.
Their first meeting was in the Cosafa Cup in 2000 and saw Delron Buckley bag a brace to secure a 2-0 win. In the 2002 edition of the Coasfa Cup, Bafana thumped Swaziland 4-1 in Polokwane thanks to a brace from Teboho Mokoena and further goals from Jabu Pule and Stanton Fredericks.
The teams clashed again in the 2006 edition of the Cosafa Cup where Bafana ran out 1-0 winners thanks to a Benson Mhlongo goal.
Their last outing was an international friendly match back in November 2013 where goals from Reneilwe Letsholonyane, Bongani Zungu and Thabo Nthethe handed South Africa 3-0 win.
Still, despite their obvious dominance over their opponents Mashaba has heeded a word of caution ahead of the Swaziland match on Wednesday.
“I know many will say we are playing Swaziland they are weak, but we have to be careful because many countries are regrouping,” said Mashaba.
“As we are going to Swaziland we should not forget that any team that plays South Africa wants to win.
“People will never understand and you know the problem with players, they tend to look at the opposition and say it's an easy team, and then you get shocked when we are held to a draw or beaten.
“This is what we want, to test the players' mind, to see their thinking against Swaziland.”
South Africa will face Swaziland on Wednesday and then four days later take on Nigeria at the Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit.
With that in mind Mashaba has highlighted the importance of these games in preparing to qualify for the 2017 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations.
“These are very important matches, even the way they are structured because if you remember well when we played the 2015 AFCON qualifiers they were set like this. And soon we will be going back to the qualifiers again so this is a good exercise for us as it prepares us well,” added Mashaba.
“Secondly we have always said that competition is about participation, so we need to participate in order to go and compete.
“Thirdly it gives us an opportunity to widen our base for selection because we will use some players for the Swaziland match while some for the Nigeria match, so I think the more games we play the better.
“Our main task is to build a new team, a team that will bring results.”
South Africa’s build-up to the Swaziland game has been affected by the withdrawal of four players from Mashaba’s initial 30-man squad.
May Mahlangu and Anele Ngcongca have both been ruled out due to injury (foot and Achilles tendon problems respectively), while Dean Furman has been excused at the request of his club Doncaster Rovers.
The other player to miss out is Kaizer Chiefs’ Erick Mathoho who has been withdrawn from the match due to family commitments.
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