Shakes Mashaba backs Bafana to edge Cape Verde

Stuart Baxter’s charges allowed Cape Verde to come back from a goal behind to thump them 2-1 last week Friday, which saw Bafana losing what could have been a valuable set of points in their tough Group D which consists of Senegal and Burkina Faso.

READ: Bafana’s World Cup hopes suffer a blow

Mashaba urges Bafana to use this chance to regain some ground on Tuesday when they host Cape Verde in the reverse fixture at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.

“We can only hope that come Tuesday, we are rectifying this mistake,” said Mashaba.

“We need to make sure that we win this game and we please our people and bring smiles on their faces. We have got the potential … our players can reverse this.

“If you look at that game that we played against Cape Verde [on Friday] we should have scored three or four goals in the first 20 or 25 minutes but most unfortunately we couldn’t and that team kept on gaining momentum.”

Having seen other results in the continent over the weekend which saw Uganda upset Egypt 1-0, Zambia beating Algeria 3-1, while awakened African giants Nigeria thrashed the African champions Cameroon 4-0, Mashaba says teams should fight for themselves and no longer depend on other results.

“With these kinds of matches, you’ve got to make sure that you win your matches at home. If you look at the other results, Nigeria beat Cameroon 4-0, who thought that would happen?

“It means from now on it is win at all costs, we don’t have to think of a draw now. Let’s play our games and not wait for other people to do things for us. Go work hard and make sure we get the maximum points,” he concluded.