{"id":21666,"date":"2025-12-26T05:32:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-face-egypt-in-key-afcon-group-b-clash\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:40","slug":"sa-face-egypt-in-key-afcon-group-b-clash","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-face-egypt-in-key-afcon-group-b-clash\/","title":{"rendered":"SA face Egypt in key AFCON Group B clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) will reach an early high point this Friday as South Africa (SA) take on Egypt in a crucial Group B match in Agadir, Morocco.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bafana Bafana enter the game as one of the early favourites, while Egypt, seven-time AFCON champions, are also expected to challenge strongly. SA\u2019s head-to-head record against the Pharaohs favours Bafana, but FIFA world rankings paint a different picture, with Egypt 35th in the world and SA 61st.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos, a 37-year veteran of the game, spent Christmas away from his family preparing his team for the high-stakes encounter. The 73-year-old Belgian acknowledged the challenge ahead, insisting that this AFCON tournament is tougher than the previous edition in Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very dangerous to put yourself as favourites. This AFCON will be tougher than the one in Ivory Coast because I think the big countries will repeat the mistakes they made there,\u201d Broos said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21667,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21666","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) will reach an early high point this Friday as South Africa (SA) take on Egypt","published_date":"2025-12-26 07:30:39","news_description":"2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) will reach an early high point this Friday as South Africa (SA) take on Egypt","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25248,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21666\/revisions\/25248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}