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Joel Santana Confident About Friendly Against Chile

National Team Coach, Joel Natalino Santana, addressed the matter of the no-show Sthembiso Ngcobo of Free State Stars, by saying that he has already been given two chances to play for Bafana Bafana and therefore treats that issue as closed. Bafana Bafana hosts Chile in a Friendly Match at Peter Mokaba Stadium at 8.30pm tomorrow 11 February 2009.

Explaining Ngcobo's matter further, the Team Manager, Sipho Nkumane, says he was informed by Stars this morning that the Player was in camp with the club. “They tell us that when he was asked why he had not reported to the National Team camp, the Player told them that he was not ready to play for Bafana Bafana,” says Nkumane. “But we asked them why they did not inform us immediately when the Player reported to camp, but that is the story. For now, we shall concentrate on preparing for this game.”

According to Santana they have been studying some of the recent games played by Chile, “and we are still going to watch more of their games again today. From what we have seen so far, we are going to have a busy game. They play an attacking game and they will try and push us into our own half. We know that they are a disciplined and skilful side, who are also good on set pieces.

“They are going to throw everything at us and they have brought their full squad here. We will have to plan for them appropriately because this will be a tough game. But this is exactly the type of games we want because we need to pushed to the limit and tested in all levels,” says Santana.

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