Bafana Bafana's World Cup qualifying campaign continues at Soccer City on Monday when they host Ghana in one of the group's most crucial games.
After the opening round of matches Ghana top Group G with 3 points, South Africa and Zimbabwe have 1 point and Ethiopia have yet to open their account.
There are 10 qualifying groups from the Africa region but only 5 nations will go on to make it to Qatar. The ten group winners will face off in 2 leg play offs to determine which teams will qualify for next years finals.
South Africa
Bafana made the trip to Harare for their opening match on Friday where they played out a 0-0 draw with Zimbabwe. The game was the first competitive match in charge for Belgian coach Hugo Broos and they were few clear cut chances with defences generally on top. The clean sheet will be viewed as a positive but given the requirement to top the group to reach the play offs more will be needed in the final third.
Ghana
Mubarak Wakaso gave the Black Stars a winning start to their qualifying campaign with the decisive goal in a 1-0 home win over Ethiopia. Covid travel protocol's mean Ghana are without 6 squad members who play for some of the European clubs including Daniel Amartey, Jeffrey Schlupp and Jordan Ayew, all of whom played against Ethiopia. Andre Ayew and players based in Spain and Germany have travelled.
Ghana have had to cope with similar circumstances during the Covid pandemic including a 1-1 draw with Bafana at Soccer City in 2020, a key result in AFCON qualifying which saw Ghana go on to reach the finals and South Africa were eliminated.
The Betting
South Africa are currently trading at around 5/4 to win the game game with the draw at 15/8 and Ghana are priced at around 12/5
A game of 3 goals or more in total is priced at 16/10 and it's 11/10 for both teams to find the net.
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
Verdict:
The team news is reflected in the match result odds but although Ghana will be way understrength they still have lots of quality players and I imagine that they would be delighted to come away with a point.
Whether Bafana have enough to break Ghana down is open to debate and my gut feel is that we will see a low scoring game, perhaps with no more than 1 goal.
Bet: Total match goals under 1.5 at 29/20
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Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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