Neutral venue may give Bafana the edge over Libya
South Africans successful on the two previous occasions when playing a key away qualifier at a neutral venue
Sunday’s African Nations Cup showdown against Libya marks the third time Bafana Bafana have had the good fortune of playing a key away qualifier at a neutral venue. Bafana were successful on the two previous occasions. The last Group E qualifier for SA in the 2019 African Nations Cup preliminaries is being played in Sfax‚ Tunisia‚ because of the tenuous security situation in Libya‚ who have not been allowed to play any internationals at home for more than a decade. Hostile crowd Libya need to win the match and ordinarily would look to use home advantage in Tripoli to maximum benefit‚ with an intimidating and hostile crowd to shake up the visitors. But Sunday’s match at the Stade Taieb El Mniri is likely to have a modest crowd with almost all the edge taken off from the stands. It was also the case in April 1997, when Bafana happily skipped a trip to Kinshasa, and again in 2013 when the conflict in the Central African Republic sent SA to a neutral venue. In the 1998 World Cup qualifi...
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