A former Nigeria boss has heaped praise on South Africa ahead of their 2023 Africa Cup of Nations semi-final clash against the Super Eagles on Wednesday.
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Working in the Ivory Coast at the moment as a pundit, German tactician Gernot Rohr has provided his thoughts on the upcoming semi-final matches at the tournament.
The 70-year-old worked as Nigeria's head coach between 2016 and 2021, overseeing 54 matches before he was eventually sacked. Since February last year, Rohr has been manager of Benin.
Speaking ahead of his former's team upcoming final-four encounter on Wednesday, the experienced tactician recalled his experience of having come up against this Bafana team, a 2-1 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying loss in November last year.
"Yes, from the four teams of the semi-finals, we could expect that Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and South Africa to make it [to the last four], but the surprise is the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said, according to The Nation.
"The interesting thing now is that we are going to see both Nigeria and South Africa, who are in the same World Cup qualifying group, in one of the semi-finals.
"I saw South Africa against Benin in November because we are together in the same World Cup qualifying group, and they have good quality and they have a lot of cohesion because they have many players from [Mamelodi] Sundowns, I think about eight in the team.
"So, it would be interesting to see them against Nigeria which is the favourite team of the competition."
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The match between Nigeria and South Africa in Bouake will be played at 19:00 on Wednesday.
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