Nigeria coach believes Bafana are Afcon favourites

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Nigeria's coach Gernot Rohr

Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr believes that victory over Egypt has now made Bafana Bafana the new favourites to win the Africa Cup of Nations.

The Super Eagles face the South Africans on Wednesday evening after coming from behind to beat defending champions Cameroon 3-2 in their last-16 clash last Saturday.

Many expected that the Nigerians would come up against Egypt, but Stuart Baxter’s men threw a spanner in the works with a famous victory in front of a packed-out crowd at the Cairo International Stadium.

Nigeria will now face Bafana, who were in the same Afcon-qualifying group as them, and Rohr has looked to shift the pressure on to Baxter’s men by claiming they are now tournament favourites.

‘We know South Africa very well because they were in our qualifiers group,’ Rohr said at the pre-match media conference.

‘I think if you are here in Egypt under these circumstances, playing against Egypt with one of the best players in the world, you will be full of confidence.

‘South Africa deserved to win; they were the better team against Egypt. And now for me, when you’re a better team than Egypt, you are becoming the favourite of the tournament because everybody said before it’s Egypt the favourite number one.

‘They beat Egypt in Egypt, so they are now the favourite number one. We are not the favourite against South Africa [because] they are beating them [Egypt] in Cairo in International Stadium in front of 75,000 people. You must be very strong to do that.

‘What they did, without any help from the referee, without any luck, they had the better team and so I heard some people say it’s good we don’t play Egypt, no, it’s not good because they are better than Egypt,’ he concluded.