Bafana Bafana must put the kibosh on the tendency to lower their guard against less fancied nations when they host embattled Zimbabwe in a 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifier at the Free State Stadium on Tuesday night.
Hugo Broos’ men drew 1-1 with Nigeria in Uyo on Friday night, and Broos will see the value of that point if Bafana produce an equally disciplined and productive performance to beat their neighbours, who prop up Group C and lost 2-0 to table toppers Lesotho on Friday.
Victory on Tuesday will see Bafana complete the fourth round at the summit of the group on seven points if Lesotho fail to beat Rwanda at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on the same day.
Lesotho are surprise leaders with five points, followed by Rwanda, Benin and Bafana — who are all on four points. Nigeria have three, while Zimbabwe are on two.
While pleased with Bafana Bafana’s gallant effort to hold Nigeria, Broos stressed the importance of the team winning their home games to keep alive their chances of appearing in the global showpiece for the first time since 2010. “We play Zimbabwe on Tuesday, and we need three points,” he said.
“I will not be happy if we don’t win against Zimbabwe. But it’s easy to say here, behind these microphones, but I know on Tuesday it will be a tough game again. All these players want only one thing: going to the World Cup. You see it in their mentality.”
Zimbabwe coach Jairos Tapera is not giving up after their loss to Lesotho, during which Zimbabwean fans, many of whom live and work in South Africa, were disappointed after coming in their numbers to support the Warriors at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.
“The loss that we got (against Lesotho) is history. Against Bafana Bafana it’s a different game altogether. We have time to probably sit down and organise and watch one or two of Bafana Bafana games and see how we can react to their movement,” Tapera said.
The Zimbabwe coach said he needed to work on his defence and was not impressed with the number of wasted opportunities, especially in the set pieces, that his team got.
Broos predicted that the group will not be decided until the final round of matches. “The group is not of top countries but it is a very tricky group... It’s unbelievable. The little countries have progressed a lot. Every team can win against any other team,” he said.
“Nobody could guess three years ago that Lesotho could be top of such a group. So it will be tough until the last match, and I think it (the group) will not be decided before that. I don’t think there will be a gap until the last game.”
Broos said the outcome in Uyo was a correct result. “We had our chances. Nigeria had theirs. We fought for it. When you come here you hope to have minimum one point. For us it was very important not to lose. You need to win your home games and see if you can get a victory outside. For us we are very happy with a point.”
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