Uganda Cranes head coach Paul Joseph Put has stated that his side has no excuse whatsoever ahead of Friday’s game against South Africa.
Bafana Bafana will host the Cranes in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.
“We are starting our AFCON qualification campaign and we don’t have any excuse,” Put said in his pre match remarks on Thursday before adding.
“South Africa is a great team without a doubt and we all saw how they performed at the previous AFCON in Ivory Coast.”
“But we have prepared ourselves very well and it is an important game for both teams so we shall try our best to get a good result,” he added.
Bafana Bafana and Cranes will be meeting for the fifth time in all competitions.
South Africa has won three of the four meetings in normal time and one in the penalty shootouts.
The South Africans came out victorious in both the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifiers; 1-0 at Namboole in 2004 and 2-1 at Soccer City in 2005.
Uganda was invited for the COSAFA Cup in 2019 and their game against South Africa was in the plate semifinals ending 1-1 before South won it 4-2 in the shootouts.
The last time the two faced each other was in a friendly game played at Friday’s battlefield in 2021 and the hosts won it 3-2.
South Africa will be without their captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams who’s nursing a shoulder injury.
The Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper was nominated for the Ballon d’Or awards in the Yashin (Best goalkeeper category) on Wednesday.
Forward Percy Tau is the other notable absentee for Bafana. He was left out with issue of his desired move away from Egyptian giants Al Ahly but unfortunately it was not granted despite Kaizer Chiefs attempting to sign him.
On the other hand, travel documents are the reason why Put will not be with defenders Kenneth Ssemakula and Halid Lwaliwa for Friday’s game.
Congo Brazzaville and South Sudan are the other two teams in Group K and the former edged the latter 1-0 on Thursday.
