A delicately poised Group E in the Africa Cup of Nations will draw to a close this week, and South Africa will look to book their place in the knockout round when they take on Tunisia on Wednesday evening.
Mali currently leads the group from South Africa with four points and will progress with a draw or better against third-placed Namibia in the other match, while Tunisia must win here to keep their hopes of qualifying alive.
South Africa finally got on the board in this year’s Africa Cup of Nations as they come into this match after securing a decisive 4-0 win against their neighbours Namibia at this venue on Sunday evening.
After missing a penalty against Mali, Al Ahly’s Percy Tau showed his class as he stepped up under huge pressure to slot away a spot kick against The Brave Warriors to give his side the lead.
From that point on, Bafana Bafana were by far the better side in the contest and had put the match to bed before the interval, with 34-year-old Themba Zwane bagging a first-half brace before Thapelo Maseko added the icing on the cake with the fourth goal of the afternoon in the second period.
With that result, South Africa extended their record of avoiding defeat in their first two matches of the AFCON since 2006, when they lost all three matches in their group and were sent packing before the Round of 16.
Having rebounded from their first match, a 2-0 defeat to Mali, Bafana Bafana are now in second place, and while the group dynamics may see a draw being good enough to progress to the next round, they will likely target another big performance, which could earn them top spot and a favourable draw in the knockouts.
With all four teams retaining hope of advancing to the knockout stages and Mali facing Namibia at the same time as this match, Tunisia find themselves with the most demanding task as they strive to avert an early exit from the AFCON.
Since 2013, the 2004 champions have consistently advanced beyond the group stage of this competition, but they head into the final group-stage match with just one point after the first two games.
Tunisia secured their only point by playing out a 1-1 draw in their last match against Mali. While they faced an early setback, they managed to level the score before the hour mark, courtesy of Hamza Rafia’s equaliser.
That result came after they were shockingly beaten by Namibia in the first match of the tournament, which was also the first win in an AFCON match for The Brave Warriors in their history of the competition.
Undoubtedly, The Carthage Eagles have faced a challenging campaign, but a silver lining for them is that their sole defeat in the last seven matches across all competitions was the match-day one loss to Namibia.
A return to victory in Wednesday’s crucial encounter could potentially secure a top-two finish, though that will be contingent upon The Eagles beating The Brave Warriors in the other match in this group.
