It had been a tough start for the South African team as they faced a loss of 1-0 to Ivory Coast yesterday evening; and heat isn’t to blame – Dean Furman.
In a hot summer evening at Cairo, the two teams of South Africa and Ivory Coast collided with each other for a chance to make a mark in their group but the game went out of hands from the Bafana Bafana when the 64th-minute goal by Ivory Coast’s Jonathan Kodjia put them behind.
Although these teams weren’t given a first-half water break, Furman says that we’ve played in similar weather every week and it isn’t to blame for their loss.
“It’s hot. But I would say 75 percent of us play in South Africa where we play a summer league so we play in this kind of weather every week.”
“It does alter the tempo of the game. But it is what it is. We went to Dubai specifically to get used to this. Dubai was 10 degrees hotter than this.”
“It’s similar to Rustenburg‚ Polokwane‚ Thohoyandou. It’s hot. We’ve got to deal with that.”
“What we’ve experienced‚ because we’ve been training at 4.30pm‚ 5pm‚ is that by the time of the second half it does cool a lot.”
“And that’s the end of our 4.30 games now. We’ve got a 10 pm [against Namibia on Friday]‚ and a 6 pm game now [against Morocco on Monday].”
“So yeah‚ we’re disappointed‚ but the conditions will suit us better in the next game‚ if they had any effect today.”
Dean joked about how the Algerian official took a drink in the injury stoppage in the first-half but denied the players to take a break.
“No. I was surprised.”
“Because the first time there was an injury the first person to take a drink was the referee.”
“And I had a joke with him because he said‚ ‘No water break’.”
“But it’s up to the referee and he decided that.”
“I don’t know if the temperature was too low for a water break. But you could see from the energy of the players the guys were desperate for a bit of water.”
After a defeat to Ivory Coast in their campaign starting match, they must win against Namibia this Friday night in order to keep their dreams alive of winning the Africa Cup of Nations 2019.
