Black Leopards and Lesotho midfielder Tumelo Makha has acknowledged that facing South Africa will be a significant challenge for his squad.
The two neighboring countries are set to meet in a Group C 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on Friday, March 21, 2025.
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"The Bafana squad is filled with quality players who compete not only in the biggest teams in the PSL but also in prominent leagues across Africa, the Middle East, and England," Makha tells KickOff.
"This highlights the depth of talent that South Africa possesses, and it will be a substantial test for Lesotho.
"South Africa has made significant progress under coach Hugo Broos, as demonstrated by their strong performance in the AFCON, where they finished third. They can now be regarded as one of the top teams on the continent. This makes the match extremely challenging for Lesotho, whose players predominantly come from the Lesotho Premier League. However, Lesotho has proven that we can compete with strong teams like Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Morocco in recent years, so I believe we can create difficulties for them.
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"Our team has performed well by becoming difficult to defeat and making it hard for top teams to break us down. We had a good victory against Zimbabwe and managed to secure draws against Benin and Nigeria through effective tactics.
"Nevertheless, we now face two tough away games against the top two sides, and realistically, we need to earn a good points haul from these matches to remain in contention.
"But we have shown that we are capable of achieving this, and we will approach these two games with the belief that we can secure the results we need."