Bafana Bafana midfielder Dean Furman insist that their first objective is to make it out of the group stages of the African Cup of Nations.

The South African national team were drawn in Group D and will take on Ivory Coast in their Afcon opener on Monday.

Stuart Baxter’s men will then take on Namibia four days later before they end their group stage games against Morocco on 1 July.

Dean Furman believes they cannot be underestimated after their good showing in the qualifiers.

Speaking to the media ahead of their opening fixture, Furman said: ‘We believe. It’s a strong team and we are coming into the tournament with a lot of confidence, based on our qualification campaign where we went undefeated. Certainly our victory away to Nigeria, our performance against them at home and our crucial victory against Libya away gives us a lot to be confident about.

‘The first target is to get out of the group. Thereafter we can…it’s a knockout competition and anything is possible. We need to make sure we get out of the group. I don’t think we are favourites and we are happy with where we are. We’ve got quality in this team. We have a lot of belief in our squad. We know that if we perform, we can achieve big things in this tournament.’