South Africa were drawn to face Egypt, Zimbabwe and Angola in the build-up to the next continental competition which Morocco will host in December.

Bafana were in Pot 2 as per the FIFA rankings and were always likely to get a fixture against one of Africa’s powerhouses.

Speaking to SABC Sport Mkhalele, who travelled to Rabat in place of head coach Hugo Broos, reacted after Group B was finalised.

“I knew that with a huge number of SADC teams qualified for the competition two of them will be drawn in our group. I’m not surprised that we are drawn with Zimbabwe but our reaction is that it’s a tough group for the fact that we know each other and also all teams have improved,” Mkhalele said.

“So, for us we will try to make sure that we continue where we left off in terms of the African Cup of Nations. We’ll continue to make sure that our team moves a step higher because we want to make sure again that we continue to be an inspiration to the young upcoming aspiring kids to play football.”

READ: COSAFA derbies on the cards in the 2025 AFCON draw in Morocco

Bafana go into a second successive AFCON as bronze medal winners from the previous tournament hosted in Cote d’Ivoire.

Mkhalele insists the bar has been set high for the national team.

“You know it’s a difficult group, even though when you look at the names because of the history or the past history some of the teams, they are not that lucrative but when you look at their performances right now it tells you that it’s not an easy group” the coach added.

“Yes, of course, we know that since we are drawn with Egypt, Egypt will try and make sure that they settle the scores of 2019. What happened in 2019 I think it’s history, for us as I alluded earlier it is important for us to make sure that the team improves.

“The more we improve meaning for us to get into the knockout stages and also eventually winning the trophy but our main goal is to make sure that the team should improve from the past performances during AFCON.”

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