South Africa v Tunisia, AFCON Preview and Betting Tips, Wednesday 24th January

Details: Written by Chris; Last Updated: 23 January 2024

AFCON trophy South Africa clash with Tunisia in our featured Africa Cup of Nations clash on Wednesday and Bafana are bidding to seal their place in the Round of 16

Group E is currently led by Mali with 4 points, South Africa have 3 as do Namibia and Tunisia are bottom with 1 point. Remember best third placed finishers are available and the other game in this group between Namibia and Mali both kick off at the same time.

South Africa

After missing a penalty and losing their opening match 2-0 to Mali Bafana put themselves on the board in some style in their second outing. The mood in the camp and across the fans in the country was lifted by a 4-0 win over Namibia on Sunday which puts Bafana well placed to qualify, a point will suffice but defeat would be disastrous if Namibia were to take something from their clash with Mali.

Percy Tau, who missed from the spot against Mali made amends by opening the scoring with an early penalty against Nabia and a brace from Themba Swane had South Africa 3-0 up by half time. Thapelo Maseko came off the bench to make it 4-0 with 15 minutes to go and that is how it finished.

At the time of writing Bafana are priced at around 37/1 to win the tournament with BoyleSports and 0.23/1 to qualify from this group

Tunisia

Tunisia's tournament had began badly as they went down 1-0 to Namibia, conceding in the 88th minute to a team ranked 115th in the world. In their second group match against Mali things got worse still as they were 1-0 down after just 10 minutes but Hamza Rafia equalized on 20 minutes and it finished 1-1.

With just a single point it leaves Tunisia needing to win this match in order to have any chance of going through to the last 6, lose and they will be going home.

You have to go back to AFCON 2008 for the most recent meeting which Tunisia won 3-1 and in 2006 they also got the better of Bafana with a 2-0 victory.

At the time of writing Tunisia are priced at around 35/1 to win the tournament with BoyleSports and 1.17/1 to qualify from this group

The Betting

South Africa are currently trading at around 26/10 to win the game with the draw at 2/1 and Tunisia are priced at around 5/4

A game of 3 goals or more in total is priced at 1.72/1 and it's 1.27/1 for both teams to score.

Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change

Verdict:

Tunisia had become renowned for keeping clean sheets during qualifying and they did keep things tight against Mali who registered just 1 shot on target. However circumstances dictate that at some stage they will need to force the issue here so it's an intriguing match up.

We have seen powerful nations such as Ivory Coast completely lose the plot when chasing a result and if Bafana can keep Tunisia at bay Percy Tau could be the player to benefit with a goal on the break. Likewise if Tunisia score first and South Africa are chasing Tau arguably remains the most likely sourse of a goal.

Bet: Anytime goalscorer Percy Tau at 43/10 with BoyleSports