Saturday February 10, 2024
- Stade Félix Houphouët-Boigny 11pm
South Africa and DR Congo will have put the disappointment of semi-final defeats behind their backs when they meet in a third place play off with bronze medals at stake.
The two nations had decent runs in the competition until DR Congo was bundled out 1-0 by hosts Ivory Coast in the semis and then Bafana Bafana lost on penalties to Nigeria on Wednesday.
This will be the first time since 2000 that South Africa features in such a match after a 4-3 penalty shootout win against Tunisia following a two-all draw.
Siyanda Xulu (Bafana Bafana defender)
“We had our own goal as a team. We wanted to go as far as we could. We know very well of our quality and especially from the coach who is one person who has always believed in us as a team. To go this far was our objective. Reaching the semi-final is a dream. Yes, we wanted to take it home, but we couldn’t, but we can be proud of the performance.”
Dylan Batubinsik (DR Congo defender)
“We’ll be disappointed for a while because we had the potential to go all the way. I think we have a mixture of feelings with the elimination, but our ambition is to go and get this medal. We have to stay mobilised to at least finish in third place. We have to be proud of what we’ve done so far, we’ve had a great run, we would have liked to go all the way but that wasn’t the case.”
