Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has assessed the physical fitness of star player Percy Tau ahead of the 2022 World Cup qualifier against Ghana on Monday at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.
Broos, looking back at how the forward performed against Zimbabwe in their Group G opener, thinks the Al Ahly forward has not reached his top fitness now.
"The more games we play, the better we can be," said Broos in his pre-match presser.
"I can take an example of Percy, we saw on Friday that this is Percy who is not 100% fit he needs games, but the team needs games too.
"It is a young team and players are not used to that level and will need these games to learn a lot. However, everybody is fit for the game, so we have no injury problems."
The former Cameroon head coach also stressed the importance of winning home games in order to have less pressure in the qualifiers.
"When you want to qualify, you need to win your home games and win maybe one outside, and if you can do that, you will be very close," he said.
"We will try to win and even if we play to a draw, Ghana will have a point and we will have two, which means we are still in the running."
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Tau, on his part, revealed his expectations for the Ghana game after the stalemate against the Warriors in Harare.
"On Friday, as the coach said, we felt that we could get a win, but a draw also put us in a good position. We have a difficult game against Ghana, we have played them before and so we know each other well and we are looking forward to that game," said the Al Ahly forward.
"We just need to be confident and keep getting better.
"We know it is going to be a difficult game. They won [vs Ethiopia] and, for sure, they are in a good mood, but we are looking forward to the game as we know them better now.
"We want to use the opportunity of playing at home. We also wanted a win in Zimbabwe, but a draw was also good, and so if we get good opportunities at home and use them, it would be better for us going forward."
As Bafana Bafana host the Black Stars, Broos will be taking charge of his second game on the sidelines as head coach.
