Bafana Bafana midfielder Sphephelo Sithole has urged his team get back to basics as they prepare to face Cameroon in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations round of 16 on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa have looked a pale shadow of themselves in Morocco, far removed from the cohesive unit that dominated teams last year to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hugo Broos’ side kicked off their title challenge with a 2-1 win over Angola, but they then lost 1-0 to 10-man Egypt, having failed to capitalise on their numerical advantage before making hard work of their 3-2 victory against neighbours Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Broos had expressed concern that they weren’t able to manage any of those games properly, and Sithole admits the players have to improve vastly in many areas on the pitch if they want to stay in the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 26-year-old, who started all three group matches, identified midfield as a key area that needs work as Bafana Bafana become unstable when that area breaks down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was not the start I expected,” Sithole said. “I know what I need to do and where I need to improve. For the team as well, we haven’t shown the form we have been in for the past two to three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have spoken about it among ourselves as the group and have agreed we need to get back to basics to get back to where we were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are some things we have stopped doing. We know if we lose against Cameroon, we are going home and we need to improve on many aspects of our game against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are playing in patches and we are a team that is used to dominating for the whole 90 minutes. That has not happened in the past three games at AFCON but we want to improve because we are capable of doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is true we are used to keeping the ball, but sometimes we misplace passes cheaply, and that is something that usually doesn’t happen with this team. We really need to improve on that so our game is complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Other key things we need to improve on are winning duels on the ground and in the air and to make our team play [with inter-passing] better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Usually, our play starts from the midfield, and if that area is not doing well, a lot of things are negatively affected and that makes the team unstable. We must do basic things well and things will work out better for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sphephelo Sithole has called on Bafana Bafana to get back top basics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,30],"tags":[96,59,129],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bafana-news","category-international-news","tag-2025-afcon","tag-bafana-bafana","tag-sphephelo-sithole"],"yoast_head":"\n