Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the 2025 CAF Africa Cup of Nations draw.
South Africa was pitted against record seven-time winners Egypt, Zimbabwe and Angola in Group B in Morocco on Monday night.
The Belgian tactician led Bafana to a bronze medal spot at the 2023 continental showpiece in Ivory Coast and is looking to spearhead his charges to a better finish this time around.
“So, in general, I think we can be satisfied. It is not a very easy group,” Broos told safa.net.
“On the other hand, I think we have a great opportunity to qualify for the next round of the AFCON. And then as you know, in the AFCON, after the group stages, anything is possible. So, we will do everything to do better than the last AFCON [Bafana Bafana finished the tournament held in Côte d’Ivoire
with a bronze medal].”
The Bafana mentor tipped the Pharaohs to be his charges’ toughest opponents while maintaining confidence in overcoming tricky Zimbabwe before admitting that plenty of homework needs to be done on the Black Sable Antelopes.
“When I look at our opponents for AFCON, I think that Egypt is the favourite to win the group. They didn’t do very well at the last AFCON, they didn’t perform like everybody expected and they were very soon out of the tournament. But I think in the last year and a half they have built a very good team. They did very well in the qualifiers, so they will be the team to beat for first place,” Broos continued.
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“Then we have Zimbabwe again. This is the fourth time that we play against Zimbabwe. We played against Zimbabwe in the qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, we played against Zimbabwe for the qualification of the last AFCON, but they were suspended, so there was no game between them and us.
“We are playing against Zimbabwe in the qualifiers for the next World Cup. We have them again now in the next AFCON. Zimbabwe is a neighbour of South Africa and it’s always a very difficult game for us. On the other hand, in all the games we played already against Zimbabwe, we played one draw, and we won three times.
“So, winning against Zimbabwe is very possible in the AFCON. And then we have Angola. Angola is for me a team I don’t know really very well. So, it will be very important to do a good analysis of our opponent Angola, and to be well prepared to play that game.”
The 35th edition of the AFCON commences on 21 December until 18 January 2026.