Keagan Dolly was able to join his teammates for the warm-up on Wednesday night (31 August) but could not be part of the football sesssion as he is still being monitored for his hamstring injury.
Keagan Dolly was able to join his teammates for the warm-up on Wednesday night (31 August) but could not be part of the football sesssion as he is still being monitored for his hamstring injury.
Dolly was given a rest on Tuesday (30 August) but has now started jogging on the sidelines, showing signs of improvement.
Bafana Bafana have the last training session this afternoon (Thursday, 1 September ) at 16h00 at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit where the Mamelodi Sundowns winger will be further assessed before a decision is taken on whether or not he will be able to feature against Mauritania on Friday, 2 September at the same venue.
Mauritania has already arrived in Nelspruit and will also conclude their preparations this evening ahead of a match which Bafana Bafana say they intend winning to round off the 2017 Gabon Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with a victory.
The South Africans haven’t forgotten how Mauritania derailed their plans in the qualifiers when they sprung a surpise 3-1 victory back in September 2015 – a result that dented Bafana Bafana’s chances of going to Gabon next year.
Kaizer Chiefs defender Ramahlwe Mphahlele was not part of that match but believes it was not a clash South Africa should have lost.
“I watched the match against Mauritania and I feel we did not deserve to lose against them as I believe we are bigger than them. Now they are coming into our home, we must win and move on to the next game. Even though we know we are not playing to qualify for AFCON, this is good preparation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. We have the advantage as we are playing in front of our fans and I don’t see anything stopping us from beatign them,” said Mphahlele.
The defender adds that there is also a bigger picture for getting positive results.
“This is a very important game for the country, remember we lost to Mauritania 3-1 and we want to reverse the results, and also we are preparing for the world cup qualifiers so we neeed to win so that we have the momemtum and the confidence to tackle the qualifiers. We must qualifiy for Russia,” added Mphahlele.
He was also part of the squad that defeated Gambia 4-0 in the last qualifiers in June. Mphahele says Bafana Bafana should continue from where they left off.
“We had a good game against Gambia, most of the guys who were in that match are here and we still have the confidence, so we believe that we can carry the performance of that match into this game and come out victorious. We want to close these qualifiers with a win, which will be our second victory in the qualifiers,” concluded Mphahlele.
The South Africa vs Mauritania clash kicks off at 19h05.