South Africa coach Stuart Baxter has confirmed that his side’s AFCON 2019 preparation games will include the Black Stars of Ghana.
In addition to revealing a training camp in Dubai, Baxter confirmed that a friendly with Kwesi Appiah’s sixth-ranked team has been agreed on.
“We want to play an international friendly before we leave South Africa and we’ve been speaking to Zambia, so they’ve also said they’re willing to play, but we haven’t got official confirmation – Ghana we do have, that’s confirmed,” Baxter said via Soccer Laduma.
The British coach also answered on the reports that the South African Football Association (SAFA) are also trying to set up a game with either Algeria or Tunisia.
“We’ve had contact with both of them…Both of them are willing to play a game, but you’ve obviously got to go through the normal channels of sending emails to the associations and receiving confirmation back.
Baxter added that the yet-to-confirmed friendlies should not be too near June 24th’s AFCON 2019 opener against the Ivory Coast.
“We don’t want to play too close to the Ivory Coast game, but we want to play two teams that will bring everybody up to speed – it doesn’t have to be an official national match, it could just be in place of training,” concluded Baxter.
