Sihlangu challenge Bafana Bafana for international friendly

SOCCER - SIHLANGU have challenged their South African counterparts, Bafana Bafana for an international friendly match slated for sometime next week, possibly in Johannesburg.
Though details of the game were still scanty at the time of compiling this report yesterday, it can be confirmed that no agreement has been reached as yet between the two countries regarding this game.
However, the local football mother body has already written to the South Africa Football Association (SAFA), requesting this match.
The National Football Association (FA) is hoping to take advantage of the FIFA weekend next week to organise a tough international practice match for Sihlangu as they kick-start their preparations for the African Nations Championships (CHAN) to kick-start early next year.
This publication has also reliably been informed that the nation’s pride was close to securing a deal to host Tunisia in an international friendly match next weekend but the deal could not go through due to financial implications.  FA’s CEO Frederick Mngomezulu confirmed the failure of the Tunisia match but was quick to reveal that his office is still vigorously searching for other strong opponents for Sihlangu.
“We have sent different invitations to a number of countries but we are yet to receive responses. I can confirm that we were in discussions with the Tunisia Football Association for such a friendly, maybe mid-week before they played Mozambique in an AFCON Qualifier in Maputo but there were a number of complications regarding the deal and we decided to drop it.
We remaining hopeful that we would eventually be able to secure an international friendly match in this FIFA weekend as part of Sihlangu’s preparations for next year’s tournaments,” Mngomezulu explained, though declining to reveal the names of the countries they are currently negotiating with.  
Besides Bafana Bafana, this publication can reveal that Sihlangu is also eyeing a tough game against the ‘Pharaohs’ of Egypt or Angola. These are the games Sihlangu’s head-coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba feels are going to test the squad’s resolve against countries from West and North Africa.
“Sihlangu has never played these countries and it’s time we test our skills them because we can now gauge ourselves against those from our region. I’m hopeful that we can be able to play one of these teams next week as that would give us good preparations for the upcoming tournament (CHAN),” he noted.
According to reliable information gathered yesterday, Sihlangu management is hoping that SAFA would allow the game to be played, at least mid-week, prior to the South African squad’s international friendly game against Japan to be played next weekend.
“It would be a sort of a practice match and it can be played on a Thursday to help Bafana Bafana European stars to shape up for the game against Japan.
Mashaba is directly involved in the negotiations for this game as he has links in South Africa. It would be good to see our boys resting their skills against some of the best South African talent, a majority of which would be playing in the FIFA World Cup next year,” a source closer to the squad said.
The last time Sihlangu met Bafana Bafana was in Germiston, where the local squad went down 1-0 through a late goal by Orlando Pirates’ winger Katlego Mashego, who was in the squad at the time. 

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