By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The South African Football Association (Safa) has confirmed the venue for Bafana Bafana’s African Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifier against Liberia.
Bafana Bafana are due to play Liberia in back-to-back Afcon qualifiers during the Fifa international break from March 20 to 28.
The first fixture will be played in South Africa while the return leg will now be staged in the capital city of Liberia, Monrovia.
Initially, the return leg was set to be played in Morocco, who are in the same group as Bafana and Liberia, due to the stadium in Monrovia not meeting Fifa standards.
However, Safa said Liberia has upgraded the stadium and Fifa has approved it to host Bafana.
Safa technical director Walter Steenbok said to prepare for the match, they have sent someone on a fact-finding mission to Liberia.
Steenbok has also confirmed that they have written to the PSL to stop their March fixtures a day early, to allow the national team enough time to prepare for the 2023 Afcon qualifiers where they play Liberia home and away.
PSL fixtures are scheduled to go on a break from March 19 while the international window begins on March 20 but Safa wants the matches to end on March 18.
Bafana Bafana got off to a losing start in the Afcon qualifiers, going down 2-1 away to Morocco and will need to beat Liberia to get their campaign back on track for the continental tournament that was pushed to 2024 in the Ivory Coast.
Meanwhile former Bafana Bafana defenders David Nyathi and Aaron Mokoena have been roped to embark on a talent search and scouting of current South African players beyond the borders to widen the talent pool for head coach Hugo Broos.
“We’ve appointed David Nyathi, who’s going to be the Chief Scout for the Association and Aaron Mbazo Mokoena, who will be the assistant Chief Scout,” Steenbok said.
“It’s already in the pipeline, that in order for us to have. a successful technical identification program and a scouting recruitment program that is very sound that we might have to beef up that department with a performance analyst.
“He will do scouting and video briefing of all the players that are [close] to the team, so that’s the main thing that we’ve already done from our side.”