Stuart Baxter still hopeful of more friendlies

by Staff Reporter

Wednesday Jun 05, 2019. 13:17

South Africa national team coach Stuart Baxter says he is still holding out hope of securing more warm-up friendlies ahead of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

Bafana Bafana will begin their Nations Cup campaign in just under three weeks’ time when they face Ivory Coast on June 24 in Cairo.

However, they have just one game confirmed between now and then: a friendly against Ghana in Dubai.

Baxter and the team will depart for Dubai on June 10 (next Monday) and the coach had hoped that an opponent would be secured for a friendly game in Johannesburg over the coming weekend – though that seems unlikely at this point.

“No‚ unfortunately we’ve got no definite plans yet. We’re still trying but it’s looking a little bit forlorn‚” Baxter explained.

“I’ll go until the last minute because I think we need it‚” he added.

The coach indicated that he was frustrated at the South Africa Football Association for leaving the organisation too late.

“It’s too much last minute. It’s too much being at the last minute trying to solve all the problems‚” he explained.

“It’s just not happening. I’m supposing that if we were to pay for three days at a hotel for any of the Cosafa Cup teams‚ flying them up in first class‚ we’d get people wanting to play.

“But for the conditions that we’ve got‚ at the last minute‚ I think it’s probably not too interesting for them.”