Johannesburg - Former Bafana Bafana midfielder Reneilwe Letsholonyane has urged the South African team to avoid complacency in their next match against Morocco.
Bafana will welcome the Atlas Lions to the FNB Stadium on Saturday at 5pm in their final match of Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) Qualification.
The two sides will do battle knowing they have both sealed their place in next year's continental competition in the Ivory Coast.
The common assumption amongst both sets of supporters has been that the two teams will look to use this timeas a means to try out different players and tactics.
Morocco don't think its a ‘dead rubber’ and so shouldn't Bafana,” Yeye Letsholonyane warns Bafana of complacency in final AFCON qualifier
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However, ‘Yeye’, who represented Bafana 54 times between 2008 and 2015 believes the African giants will not approach the match-up that way, and therefore the hosts should be ready to test themselves against one of the best nations in the world.
"From the players and the technical team, I don't think it’s a dead rubber, I think it's an opportunity to prepare for the next game,” Letsholonyane said.
“So Morocco will definitely use this game as preparation for the coming games and I think we should treat this game the same way.
“We are in a rebuilding phase as a country so I don't think there's any game that we should take lightly, every game for us is very important so that we are going to be able to compete against stronger teams in these tournaments and hopefully qualify for the World Cup.”
Bafana have not been able to get the better of their much stronger opponents for 21 years having lost two and drawn three of their last five encounters, a trend coach Hugo Broos will hope to end.
The last time these two teams met in June last year, Bafana could not defend Lyle Foster’s early goal and ended up losing the match 2-1.
Since then Broos and his men have drawn and beaten the other nation in Group K, Liberia, and ensured themselves of a place in the next Afcon before needing a result against Morocco.
With captain Ronwen Williams and midfielder Tebogo Mokoena in fine form alongside star forward Percy Tau, the hosts will fancy an upset against a side that made the semi-finals of the last year’s Fifa World Cup.
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IOL Sport