The Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace near Rustenburg will be the venue for South Africa’s opening game of their 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign, supersport.com can exclusively reveal.
The game will be played on 26 September with a 6pm local time kick off with referees coming from Ghana and Niger.
The choice of the stadium is ironic for new coach Pitso Mosimane because it was after a disappointing 1-1 draw against Ethiopia there in June 2012 that Mosimane was fired from his last stint as Bafana boss.
The draw represented a major setback in South Africa’s bid to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and South African Football Association officials went afterwards to the team hotel to tell Mosimane of his dismissal.
He had been in charge after the 2010 World Cupo but already missed out on 2012 Cup of Nations qualification because he did not know the rules around head-to-head and goal difference in deciding places in the group, and miscalculated the permutations of South Africa’s last qualifier against Sierra Leone
Mosimane thought they only needed a draw when South Africa had to win and post-match celebrations at Nelspruit’s Mbombela Stadium were embarrassingly cut short when the mistake was realised.
This month’s clash against Guinea could prove decisive in the qualifying campaign as co-hosts Kenya are also in the group. Kenya are already qualified so only one other team can advance from Group D and Eritrea are expected to be whipping boys, leaving South Africa’s head-to-head against Guinea to be likely be the key to qualification.
SAFA are still to inform South African supporters of the venue for the match in three weeks’ time.