Namibia forward Deon Hotto says they are ready to show Bafana Bafana what they are capable of when the two sides meet in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations this weekend.
South Africa come into the game on Sunday at the back of a 2-0 loss to Mali, while The Brave Warriors stunned Tunisia with a 1-0 victory.
Hotto scored the historic 87th-minute goal which marked their first-ever win in the competition but he says it’s something he’s now moved on over ahead of the Bafana showdown at the Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium.
“It has sunk in already, for us, champion players don’t celebrate their moments because we keep playing after every third game, so there’s no time to celebrate, it’s just to get back, recover and be on the pitch again and do what we do best,” Hotto tells iDiski Times.
“So that’s it, for us, it’s in the past, we have to turn the page and look forward to the next one.”
The Orlando Pirates utility man who’s featured predominantly as a left-wing back for the club has been playing in the South African top-flight for a decade now since joining Golden Arrows in 2014.
He went on to represent, Bloemfontein Celtic, the now-defunct Bidvest Wits before the lucrative switch the the Soweto giants after the status sale of the Students.
His national team are comprised of seven players based in South Africa and the local rivalry will be renewed in a repeat of the 2019 AFCON group stages, where both last featured in the continental showpiece.
“For us, both countries are from the SADEC [region] and we’re looking forward [to it] we really wanna showcase what we have as a country Namibia, it will be a nice one against our neighbours, which we call a local derby.”
South Africa and Namibia have drawn their last three meetings over the last three years.
