Stuart Baxter eyeing good results for Bafana at COSAFA

Stuart Baxter, coach of South Africa

Tuesday May 29, 2018. 11:00

South African national team coach Stuart Baxter says he wants to use the young players in his team, but has put emphasis on winning the COSAFA Cup.

The 2018 COSAFA Cup hosts will enter the showpiece in the quarter-finals on Saturday and will face the Group A winners.

Baxter said his eye is firmly set on winning the tournament and admits that success at a regional level in the tournament is a starting point to winning at a higher level.

Baxter has some exciting young players in his camp and has announced defender Siyanda Xulu as the skipper.

"That period last year was extremely difficult to have a strategy," Baxter said to the Sowetan.

"This feels like we've put in place some principles that we want. And I'm sure that if we throw up three or four names from this process - from Zambia and this [Cosafa Cup] - then that is the route we should go.

"We talk about development and partnerships and so on, but at no point at senior level do you say the results are not important, because they are.

"In the Cosafa games I'm going to be whipping the lads to make sure that they know the importance of it.

"We'll probably be playing Zambia and Zimbabwe, with very strong teams. And with the squad that we have, if we can match up against them, it augurs really well for South Africa."

The four times COSAFA Cup champions will meet either Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles or Comoros in the Last Eight.