What happened the last time Bafana Bafana met Cape Verde?
Bafana Bafana’s last meeting with Cape Verde proved the undoing of coach Stuart Baxter as the team crashed out of World Cup qualifying.
Bafana have met Cape Verde on five occasions returning a mixed set of results with two wins, a draw and two losses.
The teams last met in 2017, during the qualifying campaign for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
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THE LAST TIME BAFANA BAFANA MET CAPE VERDE
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Less than 17,000 fans turned up to the Moses Mabhida Stadium to watch an underwhelming Bafana sink to a second successive 2-1 defeat to Cape Verde. They also lost the reverse fixture in Cape Verde earlier in 2017.
Garry Rodrigues of Cape Verde scored twice as his team defeated Bafana 2-1 on the road in South Africa to deny the hosts their goal of going top of their group.
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Andile Jali would cut the lead in half, giving Stuart Baxter’s squad hope for a late rally, but instead they were left to regret the international break during which the team lost two matches in a row for the first time since 2009, and saw their hopes making it to Russia and the World Cup evaporate.
ENDURING HEROES OF CAPE VERDE
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Rodrigues is in the current Cape Verde squad along with several others who turned out for that win over Bafana Bafana including goalkeeper Vozinha, defender Stopira and Afcon skipper Ryan Mendes.
For South Africa the lone survivor of the starters that day is Themba Zwane.
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On that September day in 2017 Tokelo Rantie and Bradley Grobler wasted excellent chances to give South Africa a first half lead and profligate striking has continued to be the bane of South African football.
BAD DAYS FOR BAFANA
In the prior fixture on 1 September 2017, current skipper Ronwen Williams started in goal and was unable to save a penalty that ultimately proved the winner for Cape Verde.
Rantie had given his side the lead on 14 minutes but a Nuno Rocha brace secure a famous first win over South Africa.