Stuart Baxter has explained why he is happy for Bafana Bafana to be underdogs heading into their Africa Cup of Nations last-16 clash against Egypt.
After finishing as one of the four third best place teams in the group stages, Bafana now have a mountain to climb in the last-16 against an Egyptian side that keeps growing in confidence. The Pharaohs have the backing of their supporters on home soil and they will no doubt want to send out strong message early on in the knockout stages to rivals wanting to get their hands on the title.
"I'm happy about that [people expecting Egypt to win], to be brutally honest. I don't think there's anybody in our dressing room that's expecting them to win, honestly. We played Ivory Coast, Morocco, we've played Nigeria, Senegal and everyone of those games could have gone either way. It was tight in those games," Baxter said.
"So I think the players have partly got 'we can play better than that'. We know that this is about squeezing a bit more out, you know? This is one game and this is a great opportunity to upset the apple cart. Maybe can't, but I don't want to go away from the game feeling that we never really pitched up. If we are going to get beat, let's get beat with the flag high."
Baxter says they will try to get the Egyptian fans to turn against their team by frustrating them, but knows that going at the Pharaohs will be a risk.
"You reading the same script as me, because what I'm saying is that do we allow them to get into a nice rhythm in the game or do we try upset the apple cart and get the crowd against them? That's another reason I don't want to be on the back foot too much.
"It's a risk if you're going to go at them, of course it's a risk. If you want to get high up the field and offer them space behind you. That's a risk if you don't just sit there in a block and just frustrate them. Whatever you do is a risk, but I think it gives them a few problems that will be difficult to deal with if the crowd are on their backs. They are proud people and if they feel the crowd is not with them 100 percent...we've got to turn the crowd. If we don't turn the crowd, then we are not playing well."