Banyana were held to a goalless draw by neighbours Zimbabwe in their opening game of the tournament on Saturday, while Cameroon beat Egypt 2-0 in the other group opener.
The host nation go into the match as the favourites, but South Africa will draw strength from their Olympic qualifiers, where they beat the odds to qualify for their second Olympic Games.
Interim coach Desiree Ellis has stressed the importance of the girls believing in themselves and realising that the match won’t be an ordinary encounter, but warfare – especially because they won’t have the support Cameroon will have.
“We’ve been in a similar position before where we went to Equatorial Guinea, the stadium was packed and we had about five fans. We had the belief that we could win that game, which we did. We have that belief yet again and we have to go out onto the field and do the job.”
Ellis and her girls will be hoping that Zimbabwe don’t get a result against Egypt, so as to ease the pressure on them, should things not go as planned.
