Cape Verde head coach Bubista says their past results against South Africa mean nothing heading into the quarter-final showdown in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.
Bubista, who’se been in charge of the Blue Sharks for four years now comes into the game with history showing no favours, two wins, one draw and two defeats for either side in the previous five encounters.
They famously did the double over Bafana Bafana which derailed their 2018 FIFA World Cup campaign under then-head coach Stuart Baxter but their 54-year-old coach says they are not even thinking about that heading into the game tomorrow.
“We don’t think anything about South Africa, the fact we’ve beaten them in the past, doesn’t mean we’ll turn our faces to history,” he said when asked about their impressive record against Bafana.
“We will focus on the next match, it’s a direct elimination match, Bafana is solid, strong, compact, this will be a very challenging match for us but we promise it will be a difficult match for them too.
“We have our strategy, disciplined, organised, we’ll do all we can not to make Bafana give us problems regardless of their strategies
“We have our own history, and performances, we focus on our objectives, we think about ourselves, not the opponent.”
Having won Group B, which consisted of Egypt, Ghana and Mozambique, he also rejected the notion they come in as favourites against Bafana after qualifying for the last-eight with a slender win over Mauritania earlier this week.
“We played well during the first round, during the group phase and we’re humble, we respect all opponents, South Africa is very well respected as a football team in Africa, we ended the group phase as first, it’s history now,” he said.
“We focus on the future with it in mind we can be eliminated, so we consider it as 50/50 in terms of chances.”
The two sides meet on Saturday evening at the Charles Konan Banny Stadium (22h00).
