Bafana Bafana midfielder Dean Furman insists that his side are high in confidence heading into the African Cup of Nations after going unbeaten during the qualification round.
The South African national team have been drawn in Group D, alongside Ivory Coast, Morocco and Namibia and will play their opening game against the Ivory Coast on Monday, 24 June.
Speaking upon their arrival in the Egyptian capital of Cairo from Dubai, Furman said that the spirit in the camp is high while adding that the team needs to ‘fine-tune’ a few areas before the start of the tournament.
‘It is very good to be at our final destination in Egypt; we have waiting to be here for a long time. The pre-camp has been very good and going to Dubai has been good for us due to the heat factor. We got used to the heat and the good thing is that it is 10 degrees cooler here (in Egypt), so hopefully that issue (of acclimatisation) can be put to one side,’ Furman told Safa.
‘There is good spirit and the Afcon atmosphere is upon us. We were greatly welcomed on our arrival in Egypt and the excitement is starting to build among the players too.’
The industrious midfielder admits that their practise game against Ghana gave them a good experience on what to expect at the Afcon as they continue to their preparations.
‘We have taken most of those learnings into our training sessions and hopefully, when Ivory Coast comes, we are more than ready and confident,’ he added.
‘We believe, this is a strong team and we are coming into this tournament with a lot of confidence based on our qualification campaign where we were undefeated and not forgetting our victory in Nigeria, our performance against them at home and our crucial victory against Libya away. All this give us a lot to be confident about.’
The SuperSport United midfielder remained humble and brushed off claims that Bafana can go all the way in the tournament, declaring that his side’s target is to try and make it past the group stages.
‘At the moment we are not looking past that,’ Furman said.
‘I don’t think we are favourites. There are certain traditional powerhouses of African football but we are happy with where we are, we know we have quality in this team. We are in a strong group involving Morocco and Ivory Coast and not discarding a strong Namibia side.
‘So we are not concerned about what people say about the favourite tag, we just know that if we perform to our potential, we can achieve big things in this tournament.’