Bafana Bafana coach Molefi Ntseki has come up with a plan to improve South Africa's FIFA and CAF rankings.
In the latest FIFA and CAF rankings South Africa remained unchanged at 71st in the world and 13th in Africa.
Ntseki believes the national team must start taking matches against so-called smaller nations more seriously.
"We are very careful when we play against so-called small football countries," he said.
"We can easily remember what happened when we played against Seychelles at FNB Stadium and on their home soil. The two points we lost at Seychelles made our lives very difficult going to the last [AFCON qualifying] game against Libya."
Bafana are in the same group as Ghana, Sao Tome and Sudan, and Ntseki has vowed to change his approach when the qualifiers resume so they can improve in the rankings.
"So we will be very careful when we play Sao Tome at home and away to say let's focus and get maximum points so that when we play Ghana and Sudan we are only looking for the minimum number of points to qualify," he explained.
"But we want to do well in the remaining games because our aim is to win the group, and winning the group will definitely help the FIFA and CAF rankings."
The Africa Cup of Nations scheduled for this month have been postponed in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak across the world.