BAFANA Bafana coach Ephraim Mashaba has announced the squad to travel to Central America for two friendly international matches against Costa Rica and Honduras.
The Costa Rica match at the Boltodano Bricenio Stadium in Liberia will kick off at 04:00 SA time on Friday, October 9, and the match against Honduras at the Metropolitano Stadium will kick off at midnight SA time on Tuesday, October 13.
“This is the first time I will be leading this squad out of Africa and it is an exciting prospect. The main idea is to try and gauge our level of performance. Also I think it’s a good experience for us to play teams ranked above us like Costa Rica because to continue improving our rankings, we must play and beat the best,” said Mashaba.
This will be Bafana Bafana’s first meeting with Honduras while they played against Costa Rica in the Nelson Mandela Challenge back in 2003 in Potchefstroom. South Africa won 2-1, courtesy of second half goals from Siyabonga Nomvete and Patrick Mayo. That was the last game Bafana Bafana played with Mashaba as coach.
“If you look back then at the Costa Rica team, you will see they had a very strong team and it was not a fluke that we beat them. It is good that we are playing them again to see how both teams have progressed so far. I know they are much better and stronger, they are no longer the same team that we beat then, so it will be tough. But I am confident we will do well because our boys can also put up a very good fight,” said Mashaba.
“We will do our best to go there and get victories. We want to take the Senegal outcome forward and try to win all the games going forward. But we have to be realistic and acknowledge that along the line we will encounter turbulence – win some and lose some, but our intention is to win all our games.”
Bafana Bafana will depart for Central America on Monday, October 5.
