South Africa face a tough test against the hosts in the tournament’s opening fixture at the 60 000-capacity Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor in Dakar this weekend.
Senegal are among the favourites to lift the trophy after their fourth-place finish at the inaugural tournament in 2011.
Da Gama says they have already studied their opponents’ strengths through video footage and identified areas which they need to approach with caution.
“We’ve got Senegal’s last three games on video. We’ve really studied them and we understand what they are about,” ‘ODG’ says.
“I know they play a 4-3-3 system, they’ve got two very tall central defenders, their right-wing is explosive, they have a fantastic striker in [Cheikhou Dieng], who scores amazing goals and get’s the crowd going,” he adds.
But Da Gama emphasises the importance of focusing on strengthening their own approach and not over-emphasising their analysis on the opposition.
“For us it’s about having a good idea about them, but not to over-analyse things because it’s 70 percent about what we are about and only 30 percent about what they are about.
“As long as we have an understanding about them, we aren’t going to over-emphasise and risk having to change our entire system to then accommodate for Zambia and Tunisia.
“We have to get stronger in what we are doing. We’ve maintained our own structure and, no matter who we play, as long as we have an understanding of them, we still have our approach.”
The match kicks off at 17h00 (SA time) on Saturday, and will be broadcast live on SuperSport.