OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Tuesday 7.45pm.
BAFANA BAFANA tackle Sweden in the Nelson Mandela Inauguration Challenge in Pretoria on Saturday, and will be gunning for their first victory against a non-African side.
Bafana have never put one over a European country before, even though they won the African Nations Cup in 1996, played at the 1998 World Cup, won the Mandela Challenge last year, beating Egypt, and claimed the Afro-Asian Cup earlier in the year.
However, team preparations have not gone as well as expected, with only half the overseas-based players joining the squad in the past two days. The rest of the foreign contingent are expected on Thursday and Friday.
The locals are missing two key players with Bolton Wanderers defender Mark Fish and Manchester United midfielder Quinton Fortune withdrawing from the squad due to club commitments and injury respectively.
Three Sundowns players, Frank Schoeman, Alex Bapela and Isaac Shai, were released from training on Tuesday to join their team for a midweek PSL match against AmaZulu, while Pirates may recall Steve Lekoelea and Papi Khomane for their match against Free State Stars.
“If they do so we would be obliged to release them, but I must hasten to say that the clubs have been very co-orperative with us and they could’ve insisted to release them to us only 48 hours before the match as stipulated by Fifa rules, but they did not,” team manager Zola Dunywa said.
Dunywa said that the players will benefit enormously by beating Sweden, as they will get exposure and recognition throughout the soccer world.
“A good result improves the image of the country and also adds value to the worth of the players themselves and they could get lucrative deals from overseas clubs,” he said.
Lucas Radebe will lead the team, despite speculation that the Leeds general would miss the match.