Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter has shared what he believes would be considered a pleasing outcome at the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations.
The 2019 AFCON is scheduled to kick-off in Egypt on Friday, with Bafana beginning their campaign on Saturday against two-time champions Ivory Coast.
Expectations back home are torn between reaching the knockout stages and bringing back the trophy for the first time since 1996 – one being more realistic than the other.
But where the nations' expectations and Baxter's meet is what will ultimately decide how the national team proceed at the continental showpiece.
"If I'm trying to rationalise how people perceive [us], you're always going to be like a dog chasing his own tail – you'll never catch it," said Baxter.
"So, you're always going to be thinking, 'Well…' You know, I read a newspaper and they said, 'Now we have to go and win it; we're not just there to make up the numbers.'
"If you take that as your starting point, you're struggling. You've got to take, as your starting point, where you actually are in the process of development.
"I think this squad, compared to one-and-a-half years ago, has been turned over completely. It's a work-in-progress, it really is.
"You've got young players that have burst through; you've got more young players coming through. I think you've got a different mindset now."
The British tactician, entering a major international tournament for the first time in his career, believes three good performances in the group could suffice should it be curtailed only by a harsh decision that would send them back home by July 1.
"I will see a good tournament as establishing ourselves as one of the nations that should be at this AFCON," he added.
"We've got to go there, and we've got to give, first of all, three performances that get us through the group stages.
"If we give three great performances and get done on an offside goal in the last game, and don't go through, will we be able to put down the disappointment of not going through and identify that actually we're on the way to establishing a good way of playing?
"I hope we can. But the professional in me, and we're in a results-driven industry, says I want to get through the group, because if we do so then I know this squad is capable of raising its game another notch."