Bafana Bafana will head into their AFCON semi-finals contest buoyed by the drive to avoid defeat against half of the countries that began the tournament as the top six ranked on the continent.
Bafana face the Super Eagles on Wednesday in Bouake keen to upset the applecart and reach their third final after reaching the deciding match in 1996 and 1998.
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On paper, Nigeria will be favoured to prevail over Bafana just like was the case against Morocco in the last 16, but what has been happening on the field at this tournament hasn't consistently swung to the bookmakers' odds.
Hugo Broos' men have already beaten Morocco and drawn with Tunisia – two of the three top ranked nations on the continent giving reason to believe that they can also account for Nigeria, who are ranked sixth.
Rankings have not been counting for all with two of the teams in the last four – South Africa (12th) and DR Congo (13th), not even in the top 10 on the continent.
Morocco (1), Senegal (2), Egypt (5), and Cameroon (7) went out in the last 16 while Tunisia (3) came stuck in the group stages just like Algeria (4) and Ghana 11).
Angola were in the last eight despite being ranked as low as 28th on the continent and the champions this year, will not be any of the countries that were in the top five on the continent at the start of the tournament.
So, for Bafana, rankings will be thrown out the window just like they hope the same will happen with previous records.
All three of Bafana's AFCON meetings against Nigeria with the most recent being the 2-1 defeat in the quarter-finals of the 2019 edition.
In 2004, Nigeria massacred Bafana 4-0 in a Group D match while they also won 2-0 in Lagos the semi-finals of the 2000 competition.
There have been another 11 meetings between the two countries, with the first having been a 4-0 World Cup qualifier win for the West Africans in 1992.
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Minus the three wins at the Nations Cup finals, the Super Eagles have won another four, drawn five and lost just two one of which was a friendly while the other was an AFCON qualifier in 2017.
Wednesday's meeting is a repeat of the 2000 semi-finals won by Tijani Babangida's brace.
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