South Africa Coach calls Nigeria “arrogant”

Ahead of the clash between the two sides, Bafana Bafana of South Africa head coach Shakes Mashaba has described the Super Eagles of Nigeria as arrogant. The tactician made this declaration while announcing his squad to play Swaziland and Nigeria on Tuesday.

Mashaba on the choice of opponents, he said: "These are very important matches, even the way they are structured because if you remember well when we played the 2015 Afcon qualifiers they were set like this. And soon we will be going back to the qualifiers again so this is a good exercise for us as it prepares us well.

“Secondly we have always said that competition is about participation, so we need to participate in order to go and compete. Thirdly it gives us an opportunity to widen our base for selection because we will use some players for the Swaziland match while some for the Nigeria match, so I think the more games we play the better.

Speaking on Nigeria’s arrogance he said “As for Nigeria we know they are tough, arrogant and you can never be arrogant when you are not confident. So we have to go and compete, not just tactically, but also mentally and physically. Let’s also not forget they might come here spitting fire because we denied them a chance to go to Afcon, so it is going to be a very tough encounter.”

The last two meeting between the two sides ended in a stalemate although South-Africa are yet to claim victory over the three time African champion in a competitive fixture.