Bafana Bafana's leading goal scorer of all time Benni McCarthy says he is confident the national team will punch above its weight during the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.
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Bafana on Monday dropped down another three places in the latest FIFA rankings to 87th and while the country may not be optimistic ahead of the tournament, McCarthy, who is in line to be part of the squad, told Football411 they can go all the way.
"I don't doubt our potential and we will have home advantage... we will be playing in front of our crowd," he told this site.
"We shouldn't have problems making it past the first round and anything is possible from the knockout stage.
"It won't be a walk in the park obviously and it will be extremely hard. There will be games where we will have to scrape through, but a win is a win at the end of the day.
"But I believe the further you go, the better your chances. I remember in 1998 when we went to Burkina Faso and no-one gave us a chance, but we ended up going all the way to the final and lost to Egypt," McCarthy recalled.
"So what I'm saying is you give yourself a chance by getting through the group stages, then the confidence builds and anything is possible. We can achieve a lot if we manage to go through the group stage."
Bafana have never lost to any of the teams they will meet in the group stage; Cape Verde, Morocco and Angola, but McCarthy cautioned that history counts for nothing in football.
"On the one hand, it can be a plus that we have never lost to any of them but it can also be our downfall. We may lose focus if we focus on that, so we shouldn't underestimate our opponents," McCarthy added.
As part of their preparations, Bafana will play Malawi on Saturday in an international friendly though McCarthy will only join the squad at a later date for a mini-camp.
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