South Africa vs Uganda

At Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Friday night, South Africa and Uganda will begin their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification campaign.

These two teams have been placed in Group K of this competition, and on Thursday, South Sudan and Congo will also be competing in this division.

South Africa made a comeback to worldwide prominence earlier this year when they placed third in the previous Africa Cup of Nations held in the Ivory Coast, after years of underwhelming performance on the global scene.

After finishing second in their group, which also included Mali, Namibia, and Tunisia, Bafana Bafana eliminated Morocco—the top-seeded team in the CAF region—from the competition with a 2-0 victory in the round of 16.

After the game ended goalless in regulation time, Hugo Broos's team defeated the Democratic Republic of Congo 6-5 on penalties in the third-place playoff. However, the team was ultimately defeated by their bitter rivals, Nigeria, in the semi-final.

Since then, South Africa has won every match. In June, they qualified for the World Cup by defeating Zimbabwe 3-1 and drawing the Super Eagles 1-1. Later in the month, they won the COSAFA Cup.

With the exception of the COSAFA Cup and AFCON competitions, Bafana Bafana has won all 12 of their home games since losing 4-1 to Angola in September 2022 during the African Nations Championship Qualification.

For their first trip back to Africa's top cup competition since 2018–19, when they lost to Senegal in the round of 16, Uganda is currently embarking on their voyage.

The Cranes placed third in their group with seven points during the previous AFCON qualifying campaign, one point behind Tanzania and Algeria who qualified for the main event in the Ivory Coast.

Paul Put's team played three friendlies between January and March after missing out on a spot in the competition. They split the results, winning 2-0 against Kuwait, drawing 2-2 with Ghana, and losing 4-0 to the Comoros.

The Cranes' performance in the most recent World Cup qualifiers in June was similarly uneven; they defeated Botswana 1-0 but were defeated 2-1 by Algeria a few days later.

Since their first meeting in 2004, Uganda and South Africa have met each other four times. Uganda has lost all four games, with three of those losses being during regulation time and the other on penalties during the COSAFA Cup in 2019.