By McGeorge Mbare
After an intriguing AFCON 2025 draw that produced a group featuring the Southern African trio of Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe, Warriors coach Michael has reacted to his team’s tough group that also features Mo Salah’s Egypt, dubbing the group B as a very competitive one.
Nees had a thoughtful analysis of his opponents after the draw, and also noting the familiarities of his Southern African opponents and as well as the threat that can be posed by the Egyptians. While acknowledging the challenges, he is also showed confidence on the Warriors ‘ abilities to compete and win at the tournament.
“it’s a group with teams from the COSAFA region, the teams know each other very well, it’s not a secret and then Egypt, a country with top strikers. It’s a very competitive group, because you need to be absolutely on top of the game, straight from the beginning and I think every team can beat any team in this group and every team can lose against any team, it’s a very balanced group,” Coach News states.
The most Interesting matter in this group is the renewal of the Bafana Bafana/ Warriors rivalry. The neighbours have faced each other 16 times with Zimbabwe losing 8 matches , winning 6 wins and 2 draws.Bafana Bafana has scored 27 goals and Warriors scored 16 goals in their entire 16 game
Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos also highlighted that facing these three teams will be very difficult. he also emphasized despite Zimbabwe being a difficult opponent, it is possible to defeat Zimbabwe, judging by their previous games.
“We have Zimbabwe again, it is fourth time that we play against Zimbabwe, we played against them for the World Cup qualifiers in Qatar.. We will play Zimbabwe in the qualifiers of the 2026 qualifiers, we also now have Zimbabwe for the AFCON 2025, Zimbabwe is a neighbor of South Africa and its always very difficult to play against them, on the other side all the games we played against Zimbabwe, we played 1 draw, and we won three times, so winning against Zimbabwe is very possible now in this AFCON,”Coach Broos stated.
Michael Nees and his counterpart Hugo Broos will be looking forward to have better results against each other in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers in March before heading into the AFCON preparations.