South Africa head coach Hugo Broos has told his players not to be afraid of individual players in the Egyptian team.
Egypt will be banking on the duo of Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush to beat Bafana Bafana.
The duo were on target in the Pharaohs 2-1 over the Warriors of Zimbabwe in their opening fixture.
Broos stated that they won’t focus on individual players in the game.
“We are focused on no-one [in particular among the opposition players]. The most important thing is the team… We all know how good Salah is; we all know how good Marmoush is and we all know how good Trézéguet is and other players,” Broos told the media in Thursday’s pre-match press conference.
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“They are such a good team. Why should we focus on one player? We have to be prepared to beat the team rather than [seeing to it that] Salah doesn’t play good or Marmoush doesn’t play good. No; for us, it’s the team that’s important and we don’t really focus on one player.”
Broos also declared that he won’t change his team’s philosophy because of the strength of their opponent.
“First of all, there are some things we have to take into account, because we are playing against a very good team. That is true, but we will never adapt ourselves 100% to an opponent,” Broos added.
“We have our qualities. We have to try to show them tomorrow against that good team of Egypt.
“Surely, there are some precautions we have to take. It’s not a team like Zimbabwe; it’s not a team like Angola. This is a team a level higher, but in the other way, we don’t have to forget our qualities. We don’t have to forget the way we played in the past.
“We have to put Egypt in difficult [situations] and you can only do that when you use your quality and the players you normally use.”
By Adeboye Amosu
