When Bafana Bafana square off against DR Congo in the Africa Cup of Nations bronze medal match at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan on Saturday (22:00), it will be the nation’s half-century game in the biennial tournament.
Bafana have played in 49 matches at the AFCON, winning their first game in 1996 when they crushed Cameroon 3-0 in the group stages with goals from Linda Buthelezi, Mark Williams, and the late Phil Masinga in front of 70,000 fans at the FNB Stadium.
In that tournament, where South Africa were the host nation and making their debut, they went on to beat Tunisia in the final. However, that tournament didn’t have a Round of 16 but went straight to the quarter-finals, unlike in this year’s edition in Ivory Coast.
Overall, Bafana have won 20 AFCON matches, lost 17 and drawn 12 in the process.
There was a time when wins for Bafana were hard to come by, between the tournament hosted by Tunisia in 2004 and 2013 when they hosted again on home soil.
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They lost 4-0 to Nigeria in the group stages in Tunisia, which resulted in them crashing out in the group stages for the first time in their AFCON history.
Then came 2006 in Egypt, where it was just a nightmare for the late Ted Dumitru’s side, when they lost all group-stage matches for the first time and disappointingly came back without scoring a goal.
In 2008 under Brazilian 1994 FIFA World Cup winner Carlos Alberto Perreira, they drew two and lost the other and yet again bombed out in the group stages.
They did not qualify for the tournaments in 2010 in Angola, and 2012 in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, misreading the rules in the latter edition when they thought they had qualified on goal difference but CAF actually using the head-to-head rule as first tiebreaker.
Bafana also did not qualify for the competition in 2017 that was won by current coach Hugo Broos with Cameroon in Gabon.
As they missed that tournament, Bafana’s first win since beating Cape Verde in the 2004 edition came against Angola in the 2013 in South Africa, having gone nine matches without a victory.
Wins also dried up for Bafana between 2013 and 2019, before beating Namibia in the group stages and Egypt in the Round of 16 before losing to Nigeria in the quarter-finals.
As this tournament has been the best for Bafana since 2000, based on the football they have displayed in knockout stages, they are seen as strong contenders to clinch a bronze medal in the third and fourth playoff match against DR Congo on Saturday.
