Beat Morocco and Bafana have a path to the final, says Broos

Bafana Bafana believe a win in their huge Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) last-16 clash against formidable Morocco on Tuesday can leave the South Africans a path to the final, coach Hugo Broos said.

Morocco, who SA meet at Stade Laurent Pokou in San-Pedro (10pm SA time), were the first team from Africa to reach a World Cup semifinal in Qatar in 2023 and have perhaps the continent’s most intimidating line-up right now.

Broos, though, is hoping Bafana’s decent head-to-head record against the Atlas Lions, including two close results in the qualifiers for this Afcon, can give his side some leverage to pull off an upset in Ivory Coast.

The Belgian coach oversaw a 2-1 loss to Morocco in Rabat in July 2022. In the dead rubber return match at FNB Stadium in June 2023 Bafana stunned Morocco by the same scoreline.

Bafana have a good record against the North Africans, though Morocco have won the matches that have counted in recent clashes. In eight meetings against the Lions, SA have won three, drawn three and lost two.

It took Morocco until their sixth clash against Bafana to register a win — 2-1 in the Nations Cup finals group stage in Egypt in 2019. The two games after that were their win in Rabat and loss in Joburg.

Broos feels his team, buoyed by the closeness of their recent clashes with Morocco and from slugging it out to second place in Group E in Ivory Coast, could pull off one of the shocks of the tournament if all goes their way on Tuesday.

“The group stages ask a lot of the players because you play against very motivated teams — they all want to go to the next round,” the coach said.

“It’s amazing what happened in the group stages here in this Afcon. So it asks a lot of the players, but I think if you manage them well we can produce a good game against Morocco.

“But Morocco are also on another level. They showed it at the last World Cup in Qatar. They have become a very good team with very good players.

“But we have played them twice — in Morocco we were a bit dominated but in Joburg we won against them. That must give us confidence for Tuesday’s game, and [believing] that even against such a good team as Morocco there are things that are possible.

“We have to believe in that, and then we will see. If we beat Morocco then we know we have a big chance to play in the final.

“Because you will have beaten a very good team and then in the next round you avoid a big team — you don’t play against a Senegal or Ivory Coast.

“And I don’t want to underestimate Cape Verde or Mauritania but it’s still a difference from playing those teams than against a side like we are playing on Tuesday.

“So we know that if we can [beat Morocco] we take a big step towards what we all wanted — playing in the final and maybe winning it.”

After a 2-0 opening defeat to Mali, Bafana bounced back with a 4-0 win against Namibia and 0-0 draw against Tunisia to end on four points, above Namibia on goal difference and a point behind the Malians.

Morocco beat Tanzania 3-0, drew 1-1 with Democratic Republic of Congo and won 1-0 against Zambia to top Group F.

Cape Verde and Mauritania’s last-16 clash is in Abidjan on Monday (7pm).