Walid Regragui's respect for Sundowns and Bafana Bafana's quality football as tactics take centre stage

Responding to SABC Sport at the match day minus-one press conference at the Laurent Pokou Stadium, the venue for tonight’s mouthwatering 2023 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) round of 16 clash, Regragui has got a lot of respect for the Brazilians. 

READ: Mauritania game plan not a surprise to Cape Verde says Vozinha

Sundowns players make up almost half of Bafana’s 23-man squad and in Morocco, they know very well what they are capable of.

''I respect this national team, the squad has  seven players that play at Sundowns, they won the African Football League, and they play very well at Champion's league,'' said Regragui.

Regragui, a former Wydad Casablanca head coach, who went on to win the CAF Champions League with the Moroccan giants beating a Pitso Mosimane-coached Al Ahly, knows that Sundowns have 10 players in the 23-man Bafana squad at this AFCON. 

In the last two games, a total of seven players from Sundowns started but he also makes a valid point that this is a national team, and how they apply themselves could be different.

''Different team, different spirit, different competition. We need to fight, we need to win this game - I respect South Africa  but we must do our best to qualify for the next round,'' added Regragui. 

With Senegal now eliminated, Morocco are the only remaining team from the top five ranked African nations and they are also the only North African or Arab country still left in the competition. 

This is how Regragui responded to the talk of being favourites in this competition.

Tactically, tonight’s clash between Morocco and Bafana becomes very interesting because Bafana had different variations in their play during the group stages and they are capable of hurting Morocco again from a different approach. 

Regragui mentions a key point stating there’s cohesion in Bafana’s style of play, because of the dominance of Sundowns players.

''They are used to playing in these types of competitions, and they know how to defend [Bafana Bafana], we will continue with what we can do. We should stop thinking about past results, we have to come out and be more aggressive,'' he concluded.